


You and Me, and the Devil Makes Three

by Erato_Syne, YoursTruly (Lyscey)



Series: Orphan Children of the Sun [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies), Vampire: The Masquerade
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Awesome Darcy Lewis, Blood Drinking, Blood Kink, Blood Sharing, Blood and Gore, Bodily Fluids, Bruce Banner Is Not That Kind Of Doctor, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Come Sharing, Comeplay, Cunnilingus, Dark, Deaf Clint Barton, Dirty Talk, Established Steve/Bucky, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Steve/Bucky/Darcy, Exhibitionism, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Facial Shaving, Fluff and Angst, Frottage, Hand Feeding, Just Kiss Already!, M/M, Masturbation, Multi, Night of the Living Super Soldiers, Oral Sex, Past Steve Rogers/Peggy Carter/James "Bucky" Barnes, Polyamory, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Relationship Negotiation, Rimming, Rough Sex, Science Boyfriends, Sexual Fantasy, Snowballing, Temporary Character Death, Threesome - F/M/M, Vaginal Sex, Vampires, Vampirism Is An STI, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-18
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-05-26 13:21:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 44,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6240901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erato_Syne/pseuds/Erato_Syne, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyscey/pseuds/YoursTruly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve wants to bring Bucky back. It's Bucky who finally carries Steve through the doors of Avengers Tower, but Steve still gets his wish. His mother was right; you should be careful what you wish for. </p><p> </p><p>*Updates Friday evenings! Tags will be added as chapters are posted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Came back haunted

**Author's Note:**

> This story is canon compliant up to the events of CA:TWS. Beyond that, it is wildly divergent. We are writing largely in the MCU and borrowing bits and pieces from the comics universe where we prefer it, and combining elements of White Wolf's 'Vampire: The Masquerade'. It contains descriptions of violence, medical experimentation on humans, vampirism, death, and explicit sex. This is a dark fic with a happy ending. Please protect yourself by avoiding this fic if you find any of those things upsetting. Your safety is more important than our fun.  
> And it was fun for us.

Bucky stumbles on his way out of the taxi, trying and failing to move both his own weight and Steve’s. After a few shuffling, awkward steps he gives up the pretense of escaping notice and just hoists the other man in a fireman’s carry and starts walking; it’s only ten yards across a concrete courtyard to Stark’s front door anyway. The bright noon sun glints off the huge glass doors and he has to look down to keep walking towards them. Once he reaches those doors it won’t matter what he’s done or what happens to him, because Steve will be back where he belongs.

Steve’s weight pulls at the hood on his sweatshirt; he’s been using it to try and hide his battered face, to varying success judging by that cabbie’s reactions. It pulls away from the goddamn scalp wound and stings, reopens it so blood drips down his forehead and into his eye. He concentrates on the ground in front of him; every step a battle, every foot a mission. He will finish. Failure is not an option.

The wave of cool air that rushes over him as the doors open disorients him so much he almost falls over. He looks up to find several men in black suits striding toward him: standard security compliment. Likely better than average, considering who they’re hired to protect. His mind starts the analysis automatically, but none of it matters because Bucky doesn’t intend to fight them. He stands there in the open doorway, swaying under the weight of his best friend and his own exhaustion and blood loss, and lets them take him. Steve slides off his shoulders into the waiting hands of a guard and Bucky slumps into the arms of another. The last thing he manages to do before slipping away into darkness is say, “Stevie... Steve Rogers.”

 

...

 

Bruce ignores the hiss of pressure releasing as the door to his lab slides open. Normally he’d ignore the voice that immediately follows too, because it probably has nothing helpful or appropriate to say. This time, the tone of Tony’s voice isn’t playful or sarcastic or even smug; it’s absolutely _full_ of fear.

“Bruce, I need you in the med bay. Now.”

He doesn’t hesitate, just follows. He’s seen Tony manic before; with inspiration, caffeine, or eagerness to please, but this isn’t the same. This is panic. This can’t be good.

A set of doors slide open in front of Tony and he finds himself in a fully stocked medical exam room, staring at a barely recognizable Steve Rogers laying on the papered table in the center. He’s not moving.

“JARVIS, pulse and respiration?”

“Captain Rogers’ pulse is 130. His blood oxygen concentration is 53%.”

“Shit. Tony, move. JARVIS, tell me there’s oxygen in here.”

“There is an oxygen tank and cannula in the cupboard in the left rear corner, Doctor Banner.”

Bruce jerks open the cabinet door and pulls out the tank, dragging it to the head of the table and placing the cannula in Steve’s nose, which he finds is broken and full of blood, so he swabs it and tries again. He opens the valve on the oxygen as far as it will go and wills Steve to keep breathing. “Jesus Christ, what happened to him?”

“No idea. A mystery man brought him in like this; just stumbled into the lobby carrying him like a sack of potatoes and saying the name Steve Rogers. JARVIS confirmed with a bio scan and I had him brought up here.”

“You should have had him brought to a hospital. Call 911. Call what’s left of SHIELD. This is a little outside my scope; there has to be someone better,” Bruce says, as he check’s Steve’s pupils. One reactive, one fixed. “Neurological symptoms. It looks like multiple internal injuries, maybe a collapsed lung. This is bad, Tony. Do you know how long he’s been like this?”

Tony shakes his head. “The guy who brought him here isn’t much better. He’s in the other med lab, passed out and dripping blood on my floor. JARVIS is monitoring and there’s a nurse on call. No one goes in or out unless it’s an emergency or I give permission. We can interrogate him later. Steve is the priority here.”

“Pardon me, Doctor Banner, but Captain Rogers’ pulse is becoming arrhythmic.”

Bruce reaches for Steve’s wrist, pushing up the sleeve of his sweatshirt and wincing at what look like several large-bore injection sites. His skin is clammy and the pulse underneath is thready and weak. “Give me a vitals monitor.”

A display lights up on the window to the hallway and Bruce watches Steve’s pulse in horror as it jumps and seizes, and eventually drops off sharply. He climbs up onto the table, straddling Steve’s hips, and immediately feels that one is dislocated. Shifting his weight forward, he feels briefly for breaks in Steve’s higher ribs and sternum. Finding none, he balls his fists together and pounds on Steve’s chest one sharp time before beginning chest compressions. He can see his work on the monitor, but Steve’s respiration is still dangerously low. “He needs to be intubated.”

“ _What?_ ”

“Intubation kits are located in the center drawer of the cart on your left, sir,” JARVIS intones.

“He’s not breathing well enough on his own, we have to pump his lungs for him. It’ll be a long tube with a plastic applicator tool in a sterile package,” Bruce instructs, looking over his shoulder at Tony rifling through the drawer. He holds something up for Bruce to see. “Yes, that one, bring it here.”

Tony does. His eyes are wide and terrified in his pale face but Bruce doesn’t have time to comfort him. “Open the bag, place the tool in his mouth and as far down his throat as you can, then use it as a guide to place the tube.”

“Shouldn’t you- “

“No, I can’t stop now. You regularly unscrewed and repaired a prosthetic in a gaping hole in your chest. You can do this.”

Fingers trembling, Tony does as he’s told and then goes back for the bag they need to make it work. He hooks it up and squeezes and Bruce feels the resistance under his hands. Tony got the lungs.

“Okay. That’s good. Six compressions, then a breath. Just like that. Now comes the tricky part.”

“ _Now_ comes the tricky part?”

“We can’t do this forever. We need to shock his heart back into rhythm. Find me a defibrillator.”

“There is an AED in the blue box mounted to the wall above the supply cart, Doctor Banner. I can also override its automated settings and control it to your specifications if you prefer.”

“Yes, that’s perfect JARVIS. Tony, open the box and bring me the pads. And a pair of scissors.” When he returns with the items Bruce leans in and forces eye contact. “Listen to me very carefully. We have to work fast because when I remove my hands he’s probably going to flat-line. You need to cut this sweatshirt and expose his chest so I can place the pads. Then we have to get clear so JARVIS can shock him. Have you ever seen that before?”

Tony swallows thickly, but nods. Of course, stupid question.

“If he doesn’t come back right away we’ll do a few breaths, then try again. You got it?”

Mouth hanging open, but mute, Tony nods again.

“Good. Go.”

It’s all surprisingly smooth: the material parts like butter between the blades and the pads stick flawlessly, even on Steve’s sweaty, mottled skin. Bruce climbs down without stumbling and tells JARVIS to charge to 200 joules.

“Clear.” It sounds calm and almost polite in that ridiculous British accent.

Steve’s body jolts with the current, then relaxes again. Tony works the bag while Bruce does compressions and watches the monitor, sees that they’ll have to shock him again. He jumps like a marionette then falls back to the table like his strings were cut. So does the line on the screen.

“300 joules, JARVIS.”

“Yes, Doctor. Clear.”

It goes on for at least a minute: the ebb and flow of rushing in to breathe for Steve, then pulling back to avoid the shock. Eventually, Bruce calls for 400 joules.

“Doctor, that level of energy is contraindicated- “

“Do it.”

“Captain Rogers’ brain has been without oxygen for approximately three minutes, six seconds,” JARVIS says, and he almost sounds apologetic, the bastard.

“And he regularly holds his breath for eight minutes in the pool upstairs. We have no idea what his body can take. Shock. Him.”

“Clear.”

Bruce looks over at Tony, pale and stricken, staring back at him just like he did on the Helicarrier when Bruce had admitted to putting a gun in his own mouth. Tears are streaming down Tony’s cheeks and he’s not sure if they’re for him or Steve. “Bruce…” It’s a whisper, somewhere between sympathetic and pleading.

He stops. He lets the moment hang there between them, over the tremoring body of their friend. Tony glances past Bruce’s left shoulder, and he turns to see Natasha standing on the other side of the glass, the flat lines of the monitor striped over her face. She swallows with visible effort, clears her throat.

“We have another problem.”

 

…

 

Tony Stark doesn’t believe in heaven, but he’s getting pretty familiar with hell.

Hell is watching Bruce crumble into silence, the ashen skin under his floppy curls looking as bloodless as Steve’s face. They stand there gaping for a long moment, stunned. It’s Bruce that finally shakes them out of it.

“JARVIS, make note of the time. I have to- Someone will have to file… I don’t even know where to start with something like that.”

His friend has never sounded so helpless or defeated and something in Tony’s chest twists until it snaps. He’s out the door and blowing past Natasha toward the other medical room before he even really knows what he plans to do.

He needs space, to step back and regroup. Find out who the man in the adjoining med lab is and go through a list of actionable choices and-

“Tony?” Natasha is touching him. She never touches him. Not when he’s Tony Stark, when he exists out of the suit. He shakes her hand from his shoulder and keeps walking, right up to the glass of the medical facility doors. The back of his neck is seared by cold sweat and white noise is rising in his head. Natasha is speaking to him, but he barely understands her; she only makes it through the fog of rage in fits and starts.

“This is the Winter Soldier, a former Hydra asset…”

“...reprogrammed over and over, the last intel I received implied there was nothing left of the original personality…”

“...Commandos, Sergeant James Barnes, called ‘Bucky’. They were childhood friends. He’s listed-”

“He’s dead.” Tony intones, flat and final.

“You can’t just-”

“I’m not talking about him, I’m talking to him. He can hear us,” Tony pauses to tap the glass, taunting, like the room inside were a cage. “He deserves to know he completed his mission,” he spits, venomous, and is gratified to see the soldier flinch.

“We don’t know that, Tony.”

“We’ll see.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything Y.T. knows about medicine she learned from House, so please forgive anything that's not 100% accurate.   
> The chapter title is from 'Came Back Haunted' by Nine Inch Nails.


	2. If they're searching for us, they'll find us side by side

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from 'Dark Doo Wop' by MS MR (forever Y.T.s favorite Steve/Bucky song)

The room is small but jaunty; a wood and plaster cell tucked into a tenement block in Brooklyn. The smell of salted meat and beer is everywhere, rising from the street and all the apartments below them. It sticks to his clothes and his hair even over the warmth and glow from the hearth. In his memory Sarah Rogers is usually gone, working a shift at the bakery, the tinning plant and then bringing home some piece of mending to do by the fire. But this isn’t a memory.

He’s in bed, not sick but half sleeping. In this dream he is happy, and warm, and his belly is full. His mother sits on the edge of his spindly little bed, the old box spring creaks as she shifts to run her hand through his mop of milk thistle hair.

At the back of his mind there’s pain and terror, but he can’t grip the thoughts. They fade like the steam rising from his mother’s chipped china tea cup. He is young and small and safe. His mother’s first generation Brooklyn-Irish brogue whispering words against the soft skin of his brow. 

“You can’t stay in bed all day, Steven.” 

“It’s night,” he huffs, drawing the covers up closer to his ears. They were always the coldest part of his body, but not now. The fire feels like it touches him everywhere. 

“James needs you to go and fetch him, little love.”

There’s something wrong with this. She’s been dead for decades and he’s not a child anymore. The body he grew into would bow the bed down to the rough scrubbed floor. The patchwork quilt nothing but a scrap of fabric over his legs and chest. “Ma, am I dead?”

There’s a little laugh in her voice. “Yes, but only for a little while. I thought it might be easier for you like this.” 

Steve cranes his head up to look into his mother’s face. Smooth and young; the looker everyone said she’d been once, before the war took his father. He has one picture and few memories of her healthy and smiling.

“Are you happy, ma?”

“I’m always happy when I look in on you, little love. Proud, too.” 

Steve sits up, his skin singing, bones getting lighter. It feels like falling down, but he’s not moving. It scares him. “I don’t want to go.”

“You have a lot to do, yet. Your James is waiting, and he’s in trouble.”

He’s slipping away faster, pain and cold nipping his fingers. It’s a sluggish and heavy feeling, like being shoved through the keyhole instead of the door. 

“I love you.” He didn’t get to say it last time. She was gone by the time the nurse came calling, collapsed at work, right on the cannery floor. 

“I love you too, Stevie.” He’s drifting away like smoke, the last solid and good thing he feels is his mother’s kiss on his forehead. “Be good, little love.”

Steve wants to tell her he is good, that he’s always good and he always tells the truth, but he isn’t in their old Brooklyn bedsit anymore. 

He thrashes in the dark, his body feels borderless and strange. Everything is cold and damp and he smells the sterilizing solution they use in the med bay rooms. Before he really falls back into his body he can smell the plastic and metal of the table, the antiseptic, and then old blood underneath it. The sheet covering his face falls away and he’s alarmed by the amount of blood where it rested. The fluorescent lights shudder on as he pulls himself off the gurney. He needs to asses the damage, find Bucky and get out of- the tower?

The last thing he remembers is a dirty ceiling, dripping water and needles. So many needles. His skin stretched taut as they took and then gave back. Burning ice, and beatings, and words in Russian or German that all blurred together. 

Bucky. The name matches a scent. It’s on him, or what’s left of the sweats he’s wearing. The garment gapes open like a Y incision He pulls the pieces together and brings them up to his nose. Under the unappealing smell of himself he catches a drop or two of Buck. There is something very wrong about the way he pulls the fabric into his mouth, but he can’t help himself. The sharpness in his gums isn’t right, either, but nothing matters except the way the fabric tastes, and feels rubbed between his tongue and the roof of his mouth. It’s like kissing his old lover, or watching him laugh. It makes something thud clumsily in his chest. 

Steve take three steps towards the door when a voice calls from a hidden speaker above him. The AI is deadpan, but somewhere there’s a trickle of alarm. 

“Captain Rogers, sir and Agent Romanov are in the adjoining room. I’ve alerted them to your...condition.”

“Bucky.” His voice sounds like road rash, it’s harsh to his own ears; like he hasn’t had a drop of water since 1944. He’s thirsty, too. The thirst explains the roughness of his voice, and then it doesn’t. He stops, tries to speak again but there’s nothing. It takes another three attempts to realize that he hasn’t been breathing.

 

...

 

The Black Widow is getting nothing out of the Winter Soldier. He’s not exactly resisting questioning, so much as he doesn’t seem to understand or care who they are and what they could do to him. It’s three hours after Steve coded and the shock has worn off of Tony. Now he’s more manic than ever; pacing, his skin itching to do something other than watch. Natasha’s the master, but he’d give a good chunk of his personal fortune for ten minutes in the room with his suit.   Bruce disappeared not long after pronouncing Steve dead. Grief led to anger easily enough and the last thing they needed was the Hulk to smash out a chunk out of Avengers tower while their leader lay cold on the slab. Bruce hasn’t had an accidental transformation in more than a year and Tony has stopped asking how he does it. 

Natasha holds her stony expression like a shield. It cracked for a moment when she stood by Steve’s body but fell back into place like a veil as she sat down in front of the Winter Soldier. At first he responded to Russian, but the man seems to be devolving. He’s cycling through weeping, shaking, and catatonia with brief pauses to affirm or deny Natasha’s line of questioning.

“Failed mission,” he finally confess, after winding them down a Hydra/SHIELD rabbit hole. The Asset was separating itself from the man underneath, but neither of them could articulate how and why he’d dragged Steve out of whatever hell hole he’d disappeared into three days prior. 

Tony knows Natasha feels responsible; after all, she’d been the one to give Steve all the intel that exists on the Winter Soldier, advising him on how to follow, trap, and capture. He can see the weight of it in her shoulders. It’s not a good look on her, and he hates this man a little more for putting it there.

He can also tell she thinks Barnes isn’t responsible for Steve’s death, or the condition he was brought here in. Tony doesn’t care. Barnes is here, and impulse control and patience have never been Tony’s personal virtues. He uses his watch to start a fifteen minute timer, after which, he tells himself, he’s allowed to just go get a wrench and see what happens.

Fourteen minutes and counting and there’s a loud banging on the door. 

“JARVIS?” 

“Sir, Captain Rogers would like to speak to Sergeant Barnes.” 

“Is that supposed to be joke?” Tony grouses, turning to grab the door handle. Before he can reach it, the whole door flies off it’s hinges and into the hall. 

Behind him, their guest, whoever the fuck he is, stands and they all watch as a ghost walks into the room. 

Steve is exactly the same and exactly different. His blonde hair seems thicker and brighter beneath the matted blood. His face is flawless, the bruising faded and his broken nose set and perfectly straight again. Tony has seen him walk off a broken leg and cracked ribs after an hour on a cot, but this is eerie. He’s pale; not just ‘white guy from Brooklyn’ pale, but ‘dead guy in a cape pale’. The most unsettling thing about the scene is the way he’s looking right past Tony and to the broken man standing by the exam table, a low, animal growl coming from behind his clenched teeth. 

“Steve.” Natasha steps in front of Barnes and squares her shoulders. It would be easy to miss if Tony didn’t know her, but he can see her quickly assessing the same visual cues he’s picking up. “JARVIS, stats on Cap.”

“Captain Rogers is clinically dead, sir. I am unable to locate a pulse or respiration, and his core body temperature is 74 degrees Fahrenheit.”

“That’s not-”

“It doesn’t matter!” Steve barks and advances on Natasha. She doesn’t give ground, but she does reach for a sidearm that isn’t there. Steve crumples a little, his face and posture softening. “Please, Nat, I- I just need to touch him.” 

Tony could be knocked over with a feather. Sure there have been rumors; speculation about Captain America’s virtue and heterosexual pedigree. Tony’s read enough of it about himself over the years, and Cap’s fame is really no different at this point. However, like his own fame, he never took that shit seriously or really cared if what was said were true. It must be though, and in that instant anyone could have seen it.

 

... 

 

Bucky’s dead. This must be it, finally and at long last, he’ll be free of the Winter Soldier and able to rest. That’s the only thing that can explain Stevie standing in front of him, somehow softer and brighter than ever before, reaching out a hand for Bucky to take. He sways forward, so relieved to finally be done, and everyone moves around him, letting him fall so Steve can catch him. When those arms wrap around him, Bucky’s head knows where it should lay. Just under the punk’s chin, one large man fitting into another. It’s so fluid and effortless, he could swear it was 1944 and he’d never forgotten how this works, that no one had ever tried to take it away from him. 

He can’t always grasp those memories, but when does find them they’re vivid, overwhelming. The relief that floods him in that moment is so foreign and yet so familiar, like the first natural sleep he’s allowed after being in cryo. He can’t trust his senses, can’t tell what’s real. The chest under his ear rumbles; he can hear the lungs working around air and even he knows there’s something wrong about it. Something incomplete. 

“I can’t hear your heartbeat, baby.”

Steve shushes him, just a caress of breath on his forehead. “It doesn’t matter.”

He’s right. It doesn’t. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't mind us. We'll be over here, ugly crying over our Bucky Barnes feelings.


	3. I pretend you're still alive

“JARVIS, cut the sound between the lab and the observation room unless one of us is addressing the other,” Tony says. He’s still recording but he figures the illusion of privacy is better than nothing. He turns to Natasha, watches her stare down at her own feet for a moment. In times like this, dressed in civilian clothes and without the super-spy context, he remembers how young she is. It’s very unsettling. “So, any thoughts on what the fuck is happening in there?” he asks, hearing the exhaustion in his own voice and not caring. 

“No idea,” Natasha replies, looking grateful for something else to think about. “Something to do with the serum, maybe. We need to get Banner back in here.” 

“Give him a little while longer. I’ll tell him myself, but not until I’m sure his heart can take it. That was too intense. I’ve never seen him…” Tony blinks, tries to shake the low growl of the Hulk he could swear he heard under Bruce’s clipped instructions out of his head. There’s a flash, like there often is, of the Hulk’s roar jerking something inside him into alignment and pulling him back from the brink after that long fall. Despite the frankly daunting number of graduate degrees between them, neither can explain it (not that they talk about it), but it happened. That has to mean something, but he’s still figuring out what it is. The fact that Pepper isn’t coming back from Malibu this time is only making things more complicated.

“Work?” Natasha asks, more than just one question in her eyes. 

He narrows his. “Can we stay on topic please? You’ve really never seen anything like this?” 

She pauses, almost wary, like he’d dared her to go find a mirror and call for Bloody Mary. “I have a theory, but I don’t really know enough to be sure and I’d rather Bruce look at them before I say anything.” 

“Okay, fair enough, but first I think we can agree that this should stay between us. Nothing that’s happening here can leave the building until we fully understand it. This is officially Avengers’ business. I’ll move everything related to it into an encrypted file on my personal server and only team member bio scans will grant access. I don’t know what would happen if anyone heard about Captain America rising from the grave like Jesus, and I don’t wanna find out.”

She nods. “Agreed. No one outside the team.” 

“Hey, P.S., where’s Legolas? Call me paranoid, but I have a sudden itch to amass all the backup I can get and lay low for a while.” 

Natasha squares her posture up, like she’s getting ready for a fight. She opens her mouth to respond, closes it, looks away. 

“Holy shit. You don’t know, do you? Did you lose your Wonder Twins communicator ring? You didn’t think to tell me this earlier?” 

“He was in Europe on assignment when everything hit the fan at SHIELD. I blew his cover, hundreds of carefully cultivated fake identities of hundreds of agents actually, during the confrontation with Pierce. He’s been dark ever since.” 

“Shouldn’t we be out looking for him?” Tony demands. 

Natasha’s eyebrows glide elegantly up. On any other woman he’d think it was coy, but she doesn’t play that with him, at least not anymore. It’s difficult to rattle Agent Romanov, but she’s rattled now. “As who, Iron Man and the Black Widow? You think the two of us running all over Europe suited up would be doing him any favors if he’s gone to ground? Natasha Romanov and Tony Stark, maybe? Both those names are all over the internet now, too. I exposed myself just as much as I exposed him, and I have a lot of enemies, Tony. I don’t think I need to remind you of yours. It’s more likely one of us would get picked off in the process, or someone gets to Bruce while we’re gone, than we find Clint and bring him back alive.” She pauses for a deep breath and something a little too long to be just a blink. “He’ll contact me through one of our prearranged channels when he feels safe. Hawkeye can take care of himself; we have bigger problems.” 

She says it like an affirmation, a mantra, and Tony doesn’t have a retort. He watches her soften all over and something almost fond creep into her eyes as she looks through the observation window at the world’s original super soldiers, clinging to each other in the corner like children, apparently asleep. 

“I’m not sure what’s throwing me for a bigger loop. Sergeant Rainbow Pride or Count America.” He’s so pleased with that one he doesn’t bother reigning in the smirk. Steve might be some kind of zombie, but they’ll figure it out. There are several certified geniuses in residence, that’s gotta be worth something. He’s already thinking about the footage JARVIS must have from Steve’s resurrection, and trying to decide if he needs to better reinforce these doors. 

Tony goes upstairs to tell Bruce. At first, he thinks the whole thing was an elaborate prank, and not a particularly funny one. Tony’s pretty sure he was close to getting punched for a minute there, but eventually he talks the other man into coming back to the medical bays and seeing for himself. 

After a brief ‘hello’ to a shy Steve and a mostly unconscious Barnes, Bruce is all scientific focus and stiff bedside manner, taking a few tentative blood samples and shuffling off without further conversation. The scene is disconcerting, mostly because Tony’s never seen Banner so visibly disturbed by someone that isn’t himself.

 

...

 

“We’ll know more in a few days.” Natasha says, evenly. That ghost of a smile melting into an unreadable line as Steve shifts under Bucky’s weight. She and Tony tense as he laves his tongue over the seeping gash on his companion’s scalp, the long, sharp teeth in his mouth on display as he goes to work cleaning the other man's skin. They seem to relax when he doesn’t move to bite down or rip the wound open further. Steve understands their trepidation; it’s a very odd thing to do. He’s still self aware enough to know that. In fact, he’s almost pleased that they’re willing to protect Bucky at all, even if he might need to be protected from Steve. 

Steve’s had blood in his mouth before. There have been plenty of split lips, bitten tongues, and teeth knocked loose in his life. The taste always brought a certain satisfaction, but he never enjoyed it. Here, now, whatever has changed in him, Bucky’s blood tastes like wood smoke smells. It’s reminiscent of the camp coffee they had back in the war; rich, with a metallic edge that should have been acidic on his tongue but just made him want more. And the smell of him… Bucky smells like sunshine, and ozone, and wet earth; everything good about the world distilled down and oozing from that scrape, just above his left temple. Steve pulls him tighter against his own body, rubbing his cheek against it.

He doesn’t sleep. While Bucky rests in well earned unconsciousness, Steve stares across the room, and through the glass. When he speaks, JARVIS puts his voice though the speakers to Tony and Natasha.“We’ve been together since 1940.” ‘Physically’, he doesn’t add. Arguably, Steve and Bucky have been a couple from the moment they met. 

“No judgement here, buddy. I was a co-ed once, you know,” Tony says.

Steve sighs, his sharp mouth curling into an indulgent smile. “You were fifteen, Tony.”

“Love is love.”

Natasha makes a sound as close to a laugh as he’s ever heard from her.  “How are you feeling?” Trust Nat to ask the most awkward questions that need asking right out of the gate. 

“Thirsty,” Steve growls and thumps his head against the back wall. Possessive, too, but he’s not ready to explain to his friends the intense desire to pin his lost lover down and claim him all over again.

“Blood?” she asks, seeming much more detached from this than Tony. “Bruce should be able to pinpoint the exact nature of the mutation soon. If anyone can figure out what we should feed you, it’ll be him.”

“Gonna throw a virgin at my feet until then?” Steve chuckles. That’s appropriate, right? This is a hell of a SNAFU, but he has Bucky now. They’re safe here. He can work anything else out later.

“Turns out I don’t know any. Guess you’re out of luck.” Tony snarks, and Steve laughs. Jesus, and now he’s picturing Bucky shuddering beneath him. The man so peaceful in his arms, face slack and soft the way it used to look when they fell breathless back onto the bed.

“Any chance you two might leave us alone for a few hours?”

“Not until we know if you’re contagious.” 

“That’s fair.” He huffs, the effort of drawing breath somehow worth the way it makes him feel comfortable, like he still owns his skin. A few hours of containment won’t be so bad watching Bucky’s dark head rise and fall on his chest.

“If you don’t mind, Steve, could you run us through what happened and how you got here?” Trust Nat to remember the standard debrief, too. 

“Where do you want me to start?” 

“Last week I handed over everything I knew about the Winter Soldier. I came here to regroup under Tony’s hospitality, and you went off chasing ghosts. What happened next?”

“I went back over what happened between me and Buck on the Helicarrier, how he pulled me out of the water, after. I read through that file, cross referencing with every resource I had, trying to remember anything from our past that could help me see where he might go. I had a few leads, but I didn’t expect much, so Sam and I split up. Oh, shit.” He’d forgotten. Engulfed in all the painful memories, confusion, and desperation to get to Bucky when he woke up, he forgot about Sam. “We have to find him.” 

“Who?” Tony interjects. 

Natasha turns to him. “Sam Wilson. You saw the footage from D.C.?” 

He nods. “Hard to miss.” 

“He was the one out there with the set of mechanical wings. Ex-Air Force, friend of Steve’s. We both owe him.” 

Tony whistles, low and obviously impressed. “That was nice tech, and some awesome moves.”

“Well, they’re gone now, destroyed in the flight. What was I thinking, letting him go run down a thread on his own?” Steve presses his face into Bucky’s hair. He was thinking it would turn up nothing. He was thinking it would take months to track Bucky down, and that he wasn’t sure he wanted Sam there when he actually found him. Stupid. Selfish. 

“Relax, Steve, I’ll get on it right now,” Tony says, pulling out his phone and prodding at it with his thumbs. “I have a few favors I can call in if I need to. We’ll find him and I’ll take care of him for the rest of his life, don’t worry.” 

“What next, Steve?” Natasha redirects him, gently.

He sighs. Nothing for it but to tell the truth and hope. “I figured out the location of a facility they’d held him in a few times, between moving him around for stasis. I went looking, and I wasn’t exactly quiet about it. I thought if I didn’t try to hide he wouldn’t feel like he was being hunted, maybe he would trust that I didn’t want to hurt him and I could get close enough to talk to him again. I just… I knew I could reason with him if he could just hear my voice. From what I could tell, I was about a day behind him. It seemed like he was running from me, but he was really running from HYDRA. There was a small group behind me, maybe eight men.” 

“You’re sure they were HYDRA?”

“Makes sense. If they could mobilize anything at all to try and get him back, they would. Once they figured out I was following him, they followed me. Then, they must have decided to use me as bait instead. Took all of them to subdue and sedate me. They took me to that facility and kept me drugged. Whatever they were using, it was good. I usually burn off sedatives fast, but not this. There were… I don’t know if they were experiments exactly, but if they were just beatings they were surprisingly targeted. I was there for about two days; then Bucky came for me. Most of it, I can’t remember. I helped with the escape as much as I could, but he had to carry me out of there, both of us injured and dirty, and get us to a bus station. I must have passed out after that, because I don’t remember the ride or how we got here. Just waking up under that sheet.”

Tony’s phone plays the little jingle it always does when Bruce calls or texts him. He says it’s from a television commercial that Steve’s never seen, but it’s one of the few cultural references that he gets anyway. They had Green Giant canned goods in the 30’s. He privately thinks it’s really cute, but after seeing the look on Bruce’s face when he found out, Steve doesn’t laugh at it anymore. 

“Bruce says whatever’s going on with you can’t become airborne or be transferred by casual touch, so you can come out of there if you want. No offense Cap, but I think maybe we should separate the two of you anyway…” 

He appreciates the regret in Tony’s voice when he says it, but Steve has to agree. Bucky needs to be patched up and to sleep for about a day. Steve needs… he doesn’t know what he needs, but what he wants is to keep lapping at the gash on Buck’s scalp, and snarl and snap at anyone who comes near them. He’s got to shake himself out of this before he hurts someone. “Yeah. Just help me get him clean first. If you’ve got an empty apartment up there near mine, we’d both be very grateful, Tony.” 

“Any time,” Tony says, bright and earnest. Steve closes his eyes, and takes one more long breath of Bucky before getting up. 

 

...

 

He wakes up in the afternoon, about 24 hours after Bucky had carried him through the front doors, and finds Natasha waiting for him in his kitchen, sipping coffee from a china cup. The place is barely furnished, only used sporadically in the two years he worked for SHIELD out of D.C., but there’s somehow always fresh coffee here. Nat had helped Steve and Bucky get clean in the bathroom of an unused apartment on the same floor as Steve’s the night before. He was surprised to see her blush and look away when he kissed the other man on the forehead before leaving. She takes him back there, to look in on a still sleeping Bucky, before leading him back down to the medical level and the genetics lab.

There is absolutely nothing about being a lab rat that Steve misses, but there is something comforting about the way Bruce tries to explain his transformation. The four of them are in Banner’s lab, a centrifuge whirling in the background as Natasha finishes relaying everything she or SHIELD ever knew about vampires, which is very little.

“So, vampires exist and they live in cute little family clans. Spectacular. How does that explain Rocky Horror over there?”

Steve looks up from the red brown sludge Banner had handed him seconds before and frowns. “Sitting right here, Stark.”

“Yes, which is amazing, and still totally unexplained.” Tony throws up his hands before starting to poke at a monitor, going over the known ‘elements’ of Erskine’s serum. “They color coded alien battle tech and listed superhuman abilities on a spreadsheet. Why not catalogue Count Chocula?”

Nat just rolls her eyes.

“This might explain your healing factor, though. It looks like the RNA segment responsible was something we considered a junk strand. But-” Bruce frowns into his microscope. “It looks like your white blood cells are actively feeding on your red blood cells.”

Steve absently rubs his arms at the injection site where Banner first tried his cocktail of amino acids and hemoglobin. The ensuing seizure made his muscles tight and there’s a small, panicked voice in the back of his head telling him he’s not healing correctly. 

“Sorry about the... seizure, thing.”

“You couldn’t have known.” Steve’s voice is dark and ragged. He’s thinking about Bucky, asleep now in his locked quarters. He doesn’t want him to wake up alone. 

“So, let’s get back to the myths, shall we?” Tony quips, nodding towards the cup of extremely unappealing soup that vaguely smells of blood. “I’m thinking ingesting ‘blood’ will strip it of any pesky white blood cells your own can’t handle. So, bottoms up, Cap. Need a lime and some salt?”

“Can I get a trash can, actually?” He’s feeling a bit hollow at the moment. Eyes sunken in and sore, lips so cracked they ought to be bleeding. He feels like rawhide left out in the sun.The stuff in the cup doesn’t remotely smell appealing and he’s concerned about throwing it up. Vomiting is uncomfortable enough, but despite everything, he doesn’t want his team mates to see him so wretched. “Is this made from actual blood? Where did you get this?”

“Blood bank,” Tony shrugs, like it’s nothing. “I have a friend in medical research over at NYU. I asked for a few pints of blood, any blood will do, and he didn’t ask too many questions. ‘Cause he’s a bro. Now drink.”

“Sooner rather than later, Steve.” Bruce’s tone is a little more severe than Steve is used to. “The formulation may still need some tweaking and that batch took an hour to synthesize. At the rate your blood cells are cannibalizing one another...” He trails off, let’s it hang in the air and all eyes settle on Steve. 

With a sigh, he downs the contents of the plastic cup and chokes. It tastes like exactly what he’s been craving, only wrong; overripe, like your favorite food left to rot in the sun. It goes down, though, and that’s what matters. Steve doubles over, trying to force his gag reflex to behave, and he’s rewarded with a tingling warmth moving through his arms. He balls his fists, testing the way his skin heats and immediately feels smoother, more supple. His hands go from sunken and skeletal to strong and flexing before his eyes. The pallor is still corpse-like, but he doesn’t look like a shell of himself. In fact, anyone would guess Steve was in perfect health barring a need for a tan. 

“That’s disgusting.” He grimaces, caught between the extreme prejudice of it’s vile taste and the way it lights his veins with power and the hint of something like pleasure. A dark little whisper in the back of his mind wonders what sinking his teeth into Bucky would be like; what warm and living blood would feel like coating his teeth, sliding down his throat, infusing his tissues.

“Later, when you’ve metabolized that, I’d like to take some more blood. Maybe saliva, too.” 

“Whatever you need,” Steve says absently, distracted. He’s shifting in his seat, restless and absolutely certain that if he didn’t feel so run down and have that putrid taste lingering in his mouth he’d have an erection right now. “Are we done for now? I’d like to go lay down.” 

Bruce looks like he wants to object, but Tony cuts him off. “Go ahead, soldier boy. See about your man. JARVIS can call us if you need anything.” 

Steve goes, gratefully, and Natasha follows. 

 

...

 

“Okay, spill. What are you thinking?” Tony asks, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet. He can always tell when Bruce is on a roll and demands to be let in on his thought process. 

“Honestly? I’m not sure. I wasn’t lying to Steve; when I was working from Erskine’s notes and samples there was a bit of code I thought was part of a dormant gene, so I ignored it. He was so sick before the serum, and the samples were so old, it was hard to tell what was supposed to be there and what wasn't. Now I can’t stop thinking… what if it was actual vampire DNA? Could Erskine have found a way to get it and incorporate it into the serum? This whole time I’ve thought I must have been wrong about Vita Rays being Gamma spectrum, or maybe I had the wrong catalyst. Hell, maybe  _ I’m _ just- ” Bruce cuts himself off on a bitter little laugh, not willing to go down that thought path again, at least not in front of Tony. “This could explain why Steve has a stable mutation and I’m… the way I am. Somewhere in his blood, there might be a cure for the Hulk.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from 'Get Born Again' by Alice In Chains.   
> Thank you to everyone who's been subscribing, sending kudos, and commenting! We're so excited people are liking this story! Lots more to come!


	4. I'm coming undone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone to please note the rating and read the tags! You've been warned!

Steve manages to stay away for a whole second day before going to Bucky. This time he’s awake, sitting in the apartment’s dark living room, staring out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the skyline and the sunset behind it. After a moment of silence that’s somehow both comfortable and nerve-wracking, Bucky says, “you’re not quiet enough to sneak up on me anymore, Steve. Just come in if you’re coming.”

Smiling, Steve takes a few steps into the room. “The last few times I’ve looked in on you, you were still asleep. I didn’t know how you’d be feeling.”

Bucky slowly unfolds his legs and stands up from the floor, but doesn’t look back at him. “I wasn’t sleeping. Well, not always. There were times I was aware you were there, but I couldn’t move or talk. There were times I forced myself to lay still and breathe steady, because everything in me was demanding I hunt you down and kill you. I’m only up now because I still have to eat. My brain, all the memories, feel so fragmented. It’s like looking in a shattered mirror; all the fragments are me, but none of them are whole and none of them are _right_.”

He finally turns, and something sparks between them when their eyes meet. Bucky mumbles something else, harsh Russian syllables Steve doesn’t recognize. Then Bucky’s stalking towards him, stripped to the waist, with the metal arm gleaming in yellow-orange light, and he has to will himself not to flinch. When Bucky reaches him, though, all he does is slump against Steve’s chest.

“Took you long enough. You want my blood?” Bucky’s voice is scratched and raw.

“I want... I just want you, Buck.” It comes out breathy and reverent, like a prayer, and the man goes heavy and pliant in his arms. Their lips fit together and it feels so right, so familiar and solid. Steve makes a low, needy sound in the back of his throat and nips at Bucky’s bottom lip. There’s the bloom of something delicious at the back of his tongue, and before he can even register the desire he pushes Bucky against the nearest wall and pins him with a knee shoved between his legs. There’s a soft ‘ooph’ of rushing breath, but Bucky hadn’t resisted the motion and doesn’t shove Steve away. His hands fist at Steve’s sides for a moment, then relax and stroke up and down his waist.

“You already have me, punk.”

Bucky is still haunted and splintered, he said so himself. To take this, this intimacy, with him in such a vulnerable state makes Steve’s stomach twist. But-

“Come on, been waiting for decades,” Bucky rasps. His stubbled cheek grazes Steve’s as he touches their temples together and kisses along his jaw.

Steve gasps, reflexively, and gets a lungful of Bucky again. His senses immediately go haywire. He leans in and presses his face to the skin of Bucky’s neck and licks all way up to his ear. The taste of his sweat and skin is overwhelming and it shakes awake something predatory in Steve; something that makes him feel huge, and powerful, and brutal. He wants to jerk back from it, from Bucky, but the hands on his ribs won’t let him. In a shocking display of trust, or possibly assent, the man in his arms whines and tips his head back, baring even more of his tender throat for Steve.

He’s dreamed about this: Bucky, alive and willing under his hands again. Since he woke up, of course, but lately even more. His body is somehow even more finely tuned than the serum could make it. The awareness of it is so profound he can’t escape it, even in sleep. And it _wants_ things. Nothing but blood and sex cycling through his brain for days now, and a warmth in his chest and groin so incongruous with his constantly cold skin. What it wants from Bucky right now is monstrous and hungry, and it shakes him to the core. It makes him wonder if he’s still same man he was before. “Y-you don’t know what I could do-”

“Fangs, your skin, sleeping all day and only coming around here near dark. I got it put together. We saw this movie twice, remember? That ratty old penny theater? Remember doing this in the back row?” Metal fingers cord through his hair, tugging Steve into a long, open mouthed kiss. Bucky feels out his mouth, maps the fangs, and doesn’t flinch when he nicks himself on one. Little sparks of warmth dance over Steve’s skin as a drop or two of Bucky slicks down his throat. It feels something like peace.

Then Bucky’s gone, sliding down Steve’s chest until he’s kneeling, boxed in between Steve’s thighs and the wall. His mind is sluggish, but the whisper of his own belt buckle and zipper bring his focus straight down to Bucky.

“And this, my knees on the floor, sticky, in the dark. The little sounds you made behind your hands... God Steve, I remember every breath.”

Before Steve can stop it, save them both from damnation, the familiar heat of his lover’s mouth wraps around his cock. He nearly falls over, stopping himself with his forearms braced against the wall and letting his head hangs low, watching those lips stretch over his engorged skin. The ice in Steve’s veins turns to something molten as the underside of Bucky’s tongue caresses his glans, just how he’s always liked it. And that’s what breaks his heart, just a little bit: he could talk to Bucky for days about the Commandos, their missions together, afternoons at Coney Island, but it could never convey _this_ , the visceral memory of their bodies. This is the most Steve’s seen of the real Bucky Barnes since that first break on the falling Helicarrier. He wants to cry. He wants to come. Somewhere between those urges, he pounds his closed fist against surface in front of him and right through the drywall.  

It takes a lot of restraint not to piston his hips into Bucky’s slack mouth. Despite the truth of what he told Natasha all those weeks ago, this _is_ his first blow job since 1945. Bucky isn’t holding anything back either, working the vein on the underside hard with the flat of his tongue, rubbing the glans up against his soft palate and swallowing before he can gag. He’s not touching himself, not making a sound, just focusing on Steve and Steve’s pleasure, like it’ll sustain him. Steve forces his eyes back open, not remembering when he closed them, and Bucky’s blue gaze is soft and intense and _right there_.  

Steve comes hard and fast; so quickly that it would be a shame if his refractory period was longer than ninety seconds. He knows that hasn’t changed, because he’s been spending the hours he’s not staring at Bucky or slugging down blood flavored concoctions in Banner’s lab with his hand in his shorts like a damn teenager.

The swill they pour down his throat is about as good a substitution to real blood as his own hand is to Bucky’s body.

Bucky doesn’t spill a drop, and he groans all through the spasms racing along Steve’s skin as they both ride it out. The orgasm should center him, but all it does is fray what little control he had left. Later, he’ll realize that this was the point the man faded and the vampire stepped into his own.

They end up in a tangle of limbs on the carpet, ripping at the cheap sweats and t-shirts Stark provided until they are one bare body. Steve licks into Bucky’s mouth, tasting himself and chasing the coppery decadence of his lover's blood.

“Stevie, please. It’s okay, just give me this, please.” Bucky pleads, though Steve’s not sure why he thinks Steve would ever hold this back from him.

“I’m gonna, darlin’. Whatever you want. You feel so good. Like home.” Steve whimpers, teeth nicking the paper thin skin above Bucky’s collar bone and drawing a little trickle to lap at.

He remembers the last time they made love. It was a cramped munitions trailer on the outskirts of camp. They were two days out from ambushing a Hydra transport and hopefully capturing a few hostiles in the process. It would be their last opportunity for a while and they were both so eager, primed for the fight and full of adrenaline. He remembers Bucky’s hand on his mouth (he never could keep quiet) as the Buck rode him on a pallet of shells. Steve feels that same desperation now. The promise of Bucky’s body wrapped around him is the only thing that distracts him from his teeth on the other man’s neck. A cool, slim tube is pressed into his hand and it takes a moment for his brain to reboot and realize it’s lube. He laughs. “Where did you get this?”

Bucky laughs too. “Snuck back into that medical lab and stole it during a more sane moment. I’ve wanted this. It’s selfish, after everything I’ve-” He chokes on whatever he was about to say and Steve nearly cries again. “I have to have you again. C’mon, baby. Give it to me.” He paws roughly at Steve, as if there were something else left between them for him to tear through.

With a hurried but practiced hand, Steve reaches down to prepare his lover. The substance is thick and cold, and his hands don’t help matters much. He’s stolen a little bit of Bucky’s heat, though, and by the time he’s slipped two fingers past that tight ring of muscle the other man is writhing and begging him to get on with it.

Steve tells himself it’s the intensity of his feelings for Bucky that make him sloppy and fierce. He’s never been so demanding before. It’s just years of longing, that’s all that makes him grin down, watching as a third finger slips into the body that feels so hot and wanton around his stone-cold skin. He dips his head down and bites the deliciously throbbing vein on Bucky’s inner thigh. It earns him a high pitched keening noise. His stomach flutters and Steve withdraws his teeth, licking this wound too. He brings his other hand down to cup the wounds in his palm, smearing the trickle of blood up Bucky’s leg and onto the hard plane of his stomach. Steve has no idea why, he just does it.

“Stevie, baby, don’t make me wait. Please.”

There’s something Bucky’s not telling him. Somehow Steve can sense it in the other man’s voice as he lines himself up. Hovering over his lover’s face, touching all along the front of their bodies, sliding on the slick mix of blood and saliva, he uses one arm to hitch a leg up over his elbow for better access. The other, he wraps up and under Bucky’s shoulders. Steve wants to just hold him for a moment, to feel the man’s small and warm life completely in his hands. He can feel a chaotic finality between them that was never there when they made love before, but Bucky surges up and pushes himself against Steve’s cock. He whites out, at least, the part of him that handles empathy and self restraint.

He’s fucking Bucky hard against the floor. Both men grunting and scratching, hips rising to snap into one another. Steve plunges into Bucky with long, deep, steady strokes that belie how frayed he feels. They keep eye contact as the sound of wet flesh on flesh fills the room. He lets go of Bucky’s shoulder so he can reach down and touch him instead. Bucky jolts and freezes up like he’s completing an electric circuit, whining through only a half dozen more strokes before he comes. Steve runs his hands reverently over where it splashed between their stomachs, mixing it in with the blood he already spread there. He can feel composure slipping a little further away from him as he does it, and shakes his head hard to try and clear it. The broken moan that comes out of him sounds and feels more like a sob.

“Jesus, fuck,” Bucky pants, his head hitting the floor with an audible thud despite the plush carpet. “God, Stevie, thank you. Thank you for this, baby. It’s okay, now. Come on, Steve. It’s okay.”

The words all run together, babbled into Steve’s shoulder as Bucky pulls him down toward his own neck. Steve’s so engrossed in the other man’s body that he can’t pick it apart. He’s so close, too close to stop any of this, and when Bucky digs fingernails into the flesh of his back he sates two insatiable hungers at once: emptying himself completely into his lover while he sinks his teeth into the unmarked side of Bucky’s throat. He doesn’t mean to, doesn’t realize it’s happened until the hot gushes of blood are filling his mouth, but once the coppery richness coats his tongue and teeth he can’t stop. Steve is floating, the pull of Bucky’s body a pleasant undercurrent to the sensation of his limbs coming alive with every thick swallow, his veins opening like flowers in the sun. He sees a future for them, unfurling endlessly and it makes his heart stutter. Or is it beating?

Yes. Somehow his heart is beating and he lifts his head to tell Bucky so, to say how much he loves him and how everything is going to be okay. He’ll never let him go again.

Only Bucky won’t heart it. Can’t hear it. Because he’s dead.

 

...

 

Bruce Banner can’t sleep. He swears he slept better before the Other Guy, but those days are getting further away and frustratingly fuzzy in his memory. Betty complained about his sleeping habits, before. In fact, a number of partners he’s had stopped sleeping over after the third or fourth time he woke them in the middle of the night on his way back to work. Bruce knows Steve never sleeps long these days, but he never had a good baseline to compare with either. His smaller, anemic and asthmatic body had left him tired all the time, but unable to sleep comfortably or for more than a few hours without waking up choking and gasping. Whether it’s the serum, or intellect, or old fashioned insomnia, Bruce is up at all hours, continuing to work on his new theory. Is vampirism in the genetics, quantifiable and attainable? Could it finally be the way he gets rid of Hulk, or would it make him worse than ever?

“Doctor Banner, Captain Rogers requires immediate assistance. He’s in the residence of Sergeant Barnes.” JARVIS sounds both apologetic and flustered, somehow.

“He…?” Bruce checks his watch. “JARVIS, it’s midnight.”

“Yes, sir. There is an emergency. Captain Rogers is quite distraught and requesting your presence.”

Oh, no. “Call an elevator for me.”

He grabs the ridiculously well stocked first aid kit he’s taken to keeping nearby and heads for the residential floor. JARVIS directs him to the right door and as he’s pushing it open he can already hear sounds of distress. He spots them immediately, Steve stradling the other man’s waist, naked on the living room floor, and shuts the door quickly behind him, as if he’s afraid someone might peek in and see.

Steve’s head snaps up at the noise. His eyes are wild and uncertain, biceps trembling as he holds pressure on Barnes’ throat and blood continues to ooze from between his fingers. The blood is everywhere, actually: soaking into the carpet and upholstery, smeared across both their chests, and, alarmingly, dripping from Steve’s chin.

“I don’t-  I didn’t realize… and then I couldn’t stop. Can you help him? Please.”

“Okay, Steve.” Bruce tries a gentle smile, but it doesn’t feel right; not even apprehensive or frightened, just resigned and sad. “It’s gonna be alright. Don’t let go, okay? Just let me look at him.”

It’s pointless. Bruce can tell from where he stopped inside the door. There’s so much blood, and Barnes is so still. He drops to his knees on the carpet next to them anyway, and pulls on a pair of nitrile gloves. Slipping his arm in over Steve’s, he feels under Barnes’ jaw for a pulse. When he doesn’t find it, he leans in to listen for breath sounds. Barnes’ lips are red and shiny with saliva, and his mouth opens easily between Bruce’s fingers. There’s no breath. He reaches for a penlight and brushes the sweat-damp hair from the prone man’s forehead so he can check his pupils. Fixed and dilated, and he rolls the lids back down as he pulls away so Steve won’t see how they hang open. Bruce grabs a handful of gause from his bag and gentles Steve’s hands away from his lover’s throat, trying to catch whatever blood is left before it can fall on the carpet too.

“Go get cleaned up, Steve. I’ll take care of this.”

“But…” Steve starts to protest. His voice is small and shaky and Bruce can’t help but look up at him. He looks so childlike in that moment; confused, hurting, and scared, and obviously close to tears.

Bruce tries another tack. “You are not naive. You have to know what’s going to happen now. I’m not sure you can murder someone who doesn’t technically exist, but regardless, we have to get-” He can’t bring himself to say ‘ _rid of the body’_. Not now, and probably not ever to Steve’s face. “No one is going to disrespect him, I promise. But right now, I really need you to go wash the blood off of yourself and let me handle this.”

Never let it be said that Steve Rogers doesn’t respect authority when he hears it; he stands and goes. Bruce sits down heavily on his heels and hears one of his ankles pop. He snaps the gloves off and tosses them on the carpet. They’re bloody, but it’s likely this whole room will have to be taken down to the studs to cover up what happened in it, so he doesn’t worry. Rubbing his fingers into his temples as hard as he can stand it, he contemplates life choices that have brought him to a place where when confronted with a dead body he knows exactly what to do. He digs in his pants pocket for his cell phone and calls Natasha.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title inspired by Coming Undone, by Korn.


	5. Nothing hurts like your mouth

It’s about 0130, and Bucky is standing watch. Steve likes the last watch of the night, something about the sunrise he’s always liked, never wants to miss it. So Bucky takes the mid-watch, and they get to spend a few minutes together before he goes off to nap and then gets up with everyone to move. 

They’re on their way to a HYDRA base, might even see some action tomorrow. From the scouting reports it seems like barely more than an ammo dump to Bucky, but Steve says it’s a good strategic move and if he thinks so it must be true. Besides, a little base like that will probably be an easy take, and that means POWs, and taking prisoners means at least a day of rest. They could all sorely use some real rest and a chance to resupply. 

Bucky leans harder into the tree he’s standing against and rests the barrel of his rifle on the toe of his boot. Soon, Steve will come up the path to relieve him. On another night he might be there already, leaning next to him and exchanging quiet words and a few soft kisses. They don’t have to be so careful out here, in this in-between time and place. Steve thinks the men suspect, but Bucky knows, even if someone caught them, none of the Commandos would care. It makes him feel so free, like New York was the cage and his enlistment papers were a ticket to real freedom. As a sniper, war is a series of microcosms seen through a scope. One enemy, one bullet, and on to the next. The things he has to do are not pretty, but they’re worth it to be there to watch Steve’s back. Bucky sleeps rough, he eats shit food, he has crises of conscious he’ll probably never get over. He’s still never been happier. 

Maybe they’d talk about Carter while they were at it.  _ Peggy _ , he reminds himself.  _ If you’re gonna court her you gotta start calling her Peggy. _ Gorgeous dame, Peggy Carter. Smart, courageous… bossy. Bucky likes that in a bed partner. Life partner, too. He definitely has a type, but then, so does Steve. Steve says he told her about them, that they’re looking for a woman who can handle them both; at the very least, handle them still having each other. They’re not there yet, but if Steve trusts her with that and Bucky’s not so rusty can’t tell when a girl’s got a tumble on her mind, they will be. He thinks he could love her. Anyone who looked at skinny Steve Rogers from Brooklyn and saw Captain America inside must be alright. They can figure out how to make it work back home, maybe even have a family. He and Stevie have shared a girl once or twice, but to  _ have _ a girl - one that loves them both, that wants to share a bed all together, that’s not jealous of their bond, just wants to be included… that’s the dream. Has been since they were 18 years old. They’ve talked it through so many times, but it always seems like there’s more to say. 

Not tonight, though. Not this close to an engagement. Tomorrow, after the bloodshed, when Steve is that strange combination of proud and ashamed over killing Nazis, he’ll look to Bucky. Not indecent, not lear, but really  _ look _ , and he’ll immediately be lighter. He’s never anything but proud of Bucky. 

It’s starting to get cold. He feels it first in his toes, like it’s seeping up from the ground. That makes no sense, but he can’t seem to grasp onto any train of thought long enough to work out why. In the next second it doesn’t matter, because he hears a twig snap on the path and he knows Steve’s coming. Bucky lets the grin spread across his face and tips his head back to rest on the tree trunk. He listens to Steve’s foot falls. The big, heavy boots are good for combat but aren’t doing him any favors in the dark. He’s giddy with anticipation, shivering with it. Although, maybe that’s the cold. He licks his numb lips and waits for his breath to fog in the cold air, but it never does. The sounds from the path are getting louder, coming closer, though they don’t sound like Steve’s steps anymore. They sound like his call. He should pick up his rifle, but his fingers are stiff with cold. He’s supposed to ask for the password, but he can’t for the life of him remember it. Bucky stares off into the darkness past another large tree, into the space Steve will occupy any second, as soon as he makes it up the path. 

 

Steve is crying. ‘ _ He must be hurt _ ,’ Bucky thinks, then dismisses it. He’s never see Steve cry in pain. ‘ _ I must be hurt _ .’ That makes more sense, or it would if he felt anything but a perfect, bright clarity. He wonders, briefly, what happened. How long was he out, and why can’t he remember how he got on the ground with Steve apparently crying over a wound he can’t feel somewhere in his midsection. If he concentrates he can smell blood and feel cold arms wrapped around his trunk. 

Natalia is speaking in a low, soothing tone, but Steve is spitting back at her, snarling and crying out. 

“Don’t touch him!” 

“Steve, we need to take him-”

“You mean dispose of him! I'm not an idiot, Natasha. Please, I can’t- I just got him back. Oh Jesus Christ, no.”

Steve is pressed up against him all along his front, strong arms wrapped around his waist and trembling. They’re not generating warmth where they touch, which is strange, and also when he realizes he’s naked. Events start trickling back into his mind. 

He’d been fighting within his own brain for control of his body for weeks. It always got easier in Steve’s presence, the familiar face an anchor to a former life. It cracked him right down the middle, the two perspectives warring and then meshing. Bucky knew New York was home, the Asset knew Steve belonged in Avengers Tower. The Asset assumed Steve had come back to kill him, Bucky decided that was probably for the best. Part of him believes, will probably always believe, if he were any kind of man he would have fought his past, the alien programming in his brain, and stayed with Steve. The other part of him was just… ready. It had to happen, and he’d been glad it was Steve. 

For the first time in days, the Asset doesn’t come unbidden to his mind. Bucky has to reach for that calm detachment and wait for it to take him under. It doesn’t. He can’t find it. The memories are there, excruciatingly clear and fully formed, but the person (persona?) who lived them is gone. He’s the only voice in his head. 

Then, there’s sensation. It’s like his consciousness expands to fill his body all at once, only stronger. The normally subtle sweetness of the orange flower water Natalia uses as perfume is thick and cloying to him. He can hear her heartbeat, and another right next to it; this one faster, but slowly declining. The constant ache he's grown accustomed to where his metal arm attaches to his clavicle and shoulder blade is gone, only the awareness of the screws remains. 

The metal fingers move first, just a twitch. Bucky can feel through the metal; not like real skin, but it perceives the thick fiber of the carpet, and the tacky cooling blood on the pad of his false thumb. Steve gasps above him, his keening gone silent and expectant. 

Finally, he opens his eyes. Blue on blue, the first thing he sees is Steve. That pale face, frozen in stunned disbelief, streaked in blood that looks to be coming from his eyes like tears. Bucky can smell it, and more that must be his own. There are three other people in the room but only two beating hearts. 

“Oh God, Bucky-”

He kisses the idiot because that’s a better use of that perfect mouth. It’s deep and cool, their tongues slick against each other and four sets of fangs. Bucky starts to laugh.

This is better than he could ever have hoped. 

 

…

 

Forty eight hours later, Bruce is still awake. He’ll never shake the sight of a dead body waking up, kissing another dead body, and laughing out of his head. He’s terrified he’ll dream of it; of Steve and Barnes on two metal slabs, jolting awake, animated and obviously hungry, holding hands even as they turn predatory eyes to him. And he thought he was jaded.

_ If it can happen twice, it can happen three times. _ He’s been telling himself that a lot. The mutation might live in Barnes imperfect Soviet-strand serum, which means his own cobbled together potion might stabilize if he adds the missing ingredient. Only, he’s not sure what it is, exactly. DNA isn’t simple. It’s more than a spiral of on and off switches. He can’t be sure if it’s the vampire DNA or some other catalyst hiding in the junk strands.

For the past hour or so, Tony has been in the lab. He’s sitting at another desk, diddling with little bits and bobs, glancing up to watch when he thinks Bruce won’t notice. Bruce feels a little like he’s on suicide watch. Or worse, being babysat. He rubs his eyes under his glasses. Fatigue always brings the big guy to the surface, bobbing like a giant green apple in his brain. Having Tony sitting there, twiddling idly while he works up to saying whatever it is he wants to say, is wearing Bruce’s patience thinner. 

“Which one do you plan on fucking?” Tony is playing with his phone in a carefully constructed show of nonchalance. The question knocks Bruce completely off his already teetering mental edge.

“Excuse me?” Usually, he’s pretty good at following whatever twisted thought path and assumptions lead to Tony’s outbursts. This is a new one. 

“My money would be on Barnes. He’s suffering from some serious PTSD, but he might actually be less likely to kill you.” Tony’s finger taps at something on the screen of his phone. It’s more of a jab. He’s really upset, and Bruce feels like he’s to blame. He’s not sure why, but it feels like they are heading into the kind of conversation that doesn’t need a ‘why’.

“Let’s take a few leaps back to the troubling but not altogether unsurprising thing you just said.”

Tony shrugs. “You haven’t figured it out yet? I came to the conclusion while I was striping the carpet and floorslats out of the apartment they ruined. Blood wasn’t the only fluid in abundance.”

Bruce is starting to pick up the pieces, but there’s a sharpness to Tony’s usual impishness. It’s making him feel a little slow, or at least like Tony thinks he is. “I still don’t follow.”

“Vampirism is an STI, Bruce.”

Bruce pulls his glasses from his face, the wrought silver frames familiar and comforting in his hands. He blinks, his brain reboots. Tony might be right. 

“Steve would need to share enough of his DNA to complete the transformation, and brain death allows for the cells to accept their new host…”

Tony moves in close, so close Bruce can smell the machine oil and mustard he’s spilled on his shirt. Bruce’s lips are very dry, very suddenly. He licks them. To dispel the dryness.

“Right, there, now we’re cooking with gas. So what’s it going to be, Bruce? You shoot up with vampire blood and cross your fingers or wave that pretty ass towards Barnes? The man is half feral, he might take you up on it, Other Guy or no.”

Bruce winces, feeling the Other Guy sink down through his consciousness. He always retreats from the hard emotions, the bastard. “Tony- this might be the key to-”

“And it might turn you into a literal blood thirsty ball of rage. Imagine-” Bruce has seen more emotions speeding across Tony’s face in the past week than he has in the year he’s known him. It’s oddly compelling. “Just, imagine this, all right? You slug down a little bit of vampire blood and then you die. The next time you turn green the Hulk isn’t just wildly swinging at pedestrians-”

“Tony, stop, please.” Bruce knows the risks don’t outweigh the rewards. He fucking knows it. He’s just so tired and so bone wary of life that he’d do anything for a way out. He thinks.

“No, you’re going to listen. I’m ramping up to paint a pretty fucking picture for you to look at while you contemplate the astoundingly stupid thing you’re working up to doing.”

Bruce says nothing, but his cheeks go a little pink. 

“The monster inside of you might not change, we have no way of predicting that. But you know what’s guaranteed to change: you, Bruce. Do you get that? Did you not walk in on a bloodbath? Captain fucking America wallowing in the fluids of a man he loves. Someone he’s proven he’s willing to die for, and he killed him. Violently. And the first thing he says when you show up, too late to help? ‘ _ I couldn’t stop. _ ’ Mull that over, dip shit.”

Bruce opens his mouth, not sure if he’s going to assent or object, but Tony doesn’t give him the opportunity. He takes another step closer, fixing Bruce with an intense stare. His breath smells of Irish coffee, and the odd hours he’s been keeping are all over his face. 

“Look me in the eye and tell me you would kill something you love to spare yourself something you loathe.”

That knocks the wind out of him. Bruce can feel himself dipping towards Tony, lips parted, almost panting, and lightheaded from the effort. 

Then JARVIS helpfully announces that Sergeant Barnes and Captain Rogers are about to enter the lab. The tension deflates in a second and Bruce feels his heart stutter. It’s the first time he’s enjoyed such an extreme emotion without going at least a little green in a good number of years.

It feels nice. He likes it.

Steve enters first, closely trailed by Barnes. He’s hunched, guarded, seeming a little skittish about the shining instruments and Bruce’s white coat. 

Right, probably not a giant fan of men with needles.

“I just want a few blood samples from you two, if that’s all right.”

They both nod their assent, and, as if to show Barnes it’s okay, Steve offers his arm first. Bucky leans against Steve’s back, pressed up between the man’s shoulder blades, and watches the spot where the needle draws up the sluggish, carrion-red blood.

Bruce notes that it’s about twice as thick as human blood. One of it’s many odd properties. Before he can swab the site, Barnes reaches his flesh and blood hand down and captures the oozing drop. He sticks the finger into his mouth, like he’s just swiped up a stray glob of cake batter, and hums.

Bruce is suddenly fascinated by the labels he’s applying to Steve’s viles. “Ok, Barnes, you’re up. I’m going to take three samples. Is that ok?”

He nods, mouth turning up into an easy grin as Steve takes his place behind him. 

“Bucky’s going to need some more, umm… something to eat, soon. The formula you made last night isn’t really helping.”

Bruce nods, prepping the needle. “I’ll deliver a new formulation tomorrow evening. It’s almost ready.”

“Thanks, Dr. Banner,” Barnes’ says, pleased. 

Bruce hasn’t heard the man say more than two words since arriving at the tower. It jars him for a moment, and then he smiles as he goes to work. “You people have got to stop thinking of me as a doctor,” he says, inserting the needle into Barnes’ arm. 

Never one to pass up a perceived invitation, Tony replies, “you  _ are _ a doctor. Twice.” 

“Physics and biochemistry, Tony. I am not equipped to handle Night of the Living Super Soldiers.” 

Tony grins at him. “Hey, that was a good one!” 

He just sighs. There’s no winning there.

Barnes hasn’t really opened up to anyone but Steve, not that Bruce can blame him. He’s sitting on the stool with his boyfriend (or lover, or hell, he’s not sure what they’d prefer to call one another) rubbing slow circles across his back. Bruce hates asking them to the lab. His own sins bubble too close to the surface in here. Would Bucky Barnes be a vampire right now if he hadn’t of gotten creative with Steve’s condition? He takes a step away from the other man, and Steve takes his place. 

“Mind if we get going, Bruce?” 

He can tell Steve is trying to calm his lover. Barnes isn’t as shell shocked as anyone thinks he should be, though. The impassive face of a broken man is gone, transplanted by a wry grin and a bright, albeit haunted, gaze. 

“Sure. I’ll let you know if I find any irregularities between the two samples.” One from Steve, one from Bucky. It’ll be simple to compare the two, observe the genetic difference between the older vampire and the newer. The question is: will it be illuminating? And can he stay awake long enough to get it done? 

Tony is staring at him as the two men leave, arm in arm. Something about their bold and careless intimacy makes Bruce’s heart clench. Maybe it has something to do with the way Tony’s been looking at him, or the heated argument that didn’t feel like an argument they just had.

Maybe.

 

...

  
  
The following night, as Steve and Bucky are rising and contemplating getting some exercise in, there’s a tentative knock at the door. Bruce Banner is on the other side, carrying a little cooler and looking uncomfortable. Steve invites him in and they meet Bucky in the kitchen. 

“So, uh, I brought you this,” he says, giving the plastic cooler a little shake. “So far, I’ve been using blood as a carrier for what it seemed like you need, trying to condense and enrich it to make your ideal food. But, obviously, that’s not really helping.” Bruce winces, but doesn’t apologize, and continues without prompting. “So, I figured we could try it a little more simply. This is blood,” he says, setting the hard plastic box on the counter. “It’s from the same blood bank Tony’s been getting it from for all my research. I think we can keep the two of you in a pretty constant supply, but try to go easy until we figure out your new metabolisms. It has to stay cold, so I’ll bring it to you a few days at a time and you can keep it in your refrigerator. Just adjust the temperature to 72 degrees and it’ll be good for about a month. You can heat it up, if you want. I wouldn’t suggest the microwave, because of the plastic, but you could submerge it in warm water for a few minutes right before you drink it if that makes it more palatable.” He’s rambling badly, and wringing his hands a little now that they’re free. 

Steve tries to give him an easy out. “Doctor Ba- Bruce, I-” 

Bruce holds up a hand and closes his eyes. He’d been avoiding eye contact for several minutes and Steve assumed it was because he and Bucky made him uncomfortable, but this doesn’t feel quite like that. “Steve, if you’re about to apologize, don’t. This is definitely the most upsetting thing I’ve been a part of since the Hulk, and that’s saying something, but if you try to take responsibility for any of it I might actually be sick.” 

Steve is so taken aback, he recoils a little. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Bucky do the same. Bruce sighs. 

“I’m the one who’s sorry, Steve, Sergeant Barnes. I wasn’t giving you my full attention. I was thinking of myself and whether I could use what’s happening to you to solve my own problems. I didn’t tell you about it, and that was wrong too. I would like, if you’re amenable, to keep studying your blood, but I want you to give it freely and with the knowledge that I’m using it to try to create a serum that would stabilize me and the Hulk. I don’t know what that would look like yet, but I think it’s worth a shot. 

“Anyway, in the meantime, you deserve to have some control over this. So, here. There’s six pints in this. Have one pint each, and, if you want to, come down to my lab later so we can compare its effects with what you were consuming before.” 

Bruce pauses, still as a statue, and still doesn’t look at either of them. Steve knows he’s standing there gaping at the man like an idiot, but he’s a bit blindsided. Revulsion or fear, or (possibly worse) scientific curiosity, he was prepared for; contrition and sympathy, not so much. Finally, Bucky reaches over the kitchen counter between them and socks Steve gently on the arm to snap him out of it. 

“Okay. It’s okay, Bruce. We understand.” Steve speaks for both of them without even thinking, but Bucky backs him up immediately.

“Yeah, no sweat, doc. The way I see it, everyone here’s been lookin’ out for us pretty good. You tried to save Steve’s life. I think you would have tried to save mine if there’d been a chance. That’s more than I can say for a lot of men. I’m grateful to you.” 

Bruce opens and closes his mouth on a few words before deciding on, “you’re welcome, Sergeant Barnes.”. 

“Bucky,” he corrects. 

“Right.” Bruce nods, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Well, see you around, gentlemen.” 

After Bruce is gone, the two of them just stare at the container for a long moment. Now that he’s not focused on Bruce, Steve realizes he can smell the blood through all the layers of plastic and insulation. He can feel his nostrils flaring as he leans in toward it, chasing the scent. When he looks up again, Bucky is grinning, amused at Steve, but showing his own tells too. His pupils are blown and the fingers of his right hand are curled and tapping against his palm, itching to get his hands on something. 

“Should we…” Steve starts. 

“Yes,” Bucky replies immediately. 

“Do you want to, uh, warm it?” 

He shrugs. “The man said keep it simple. We can think about preferences later, Stevie. I’m  _ starving _ .” 

Steve lifts the plastic lid off a little reverently and places it to the side. Inside, as promised, are six stacked IV bags of deep red blood. He picks one up and studies how it slumps in his hand, watches the blood slosh around and continue to slide down the plastic for several seconds after it’s moved. Bucky picks one up too, turns it sideways to grip in both his hands, and brings it up to his mouth. Steve mimics him, and, eyes locked on one another, they bite through the thin plastic in unison. 

He remembers this feeling from his first night with Bucky. It’s almost right, but not quite _ perfect _ . The plastic feels nothing like sinking his teeth into skin, and the slightly cool rush of it into his mouth isn’t as consuming as the body-warm pulses Bucky’s heartbeat had pushed into him. There’s a barely-there chemical taste that he thinks he should ask Bruce about later, but he’s not overly concerned. Everything in his body is telling him that this is exactly what he needs and his eyes flutter closed as he takes long, luscious pulls from the hole he’s made in the bag, until he can’t suck out any more. It feels right. He feels totally calm for the first time in days. 

All that is washed away by a sharp stab of lust when he opens his eyes again and sees Bucky. Steve’s dick twitches in his pants and he gasps, surprised at how hard he’d gotten without noticing. Stupidly, he realizes, he’d forgotten this would be Bucky’s first time tasting blood. A thin stream of it runs down from the corner of his mouth where he couldn’t quite keep it contained. The other man’s chest is heaving with breath he doesn’t need, but can’t control. His hands have fallen away from his face and down to grip the counter top, the crumpled bag forgotten on the floor where he dropped it. The muscles of his forearm stand out sharply, and Steve’s vaguely disturbed to realize he can hear the metal plates of Bucky’s prosthetic grinding together. 

“Steve…” It comes out gritty, from behind his bared teeth, and Steve can only nod before Bucky’s over the counter that separates them, plopped down onto it and reeling Steve in by the hips, between his spread thighs. 

Hands are shoved under the hem of Steve’s shirt and he struggles to get it off without stopping his efforts to pull Bucky’s sweatpants down. It’s uncoordinated and would probably look ridiculous from the outside, but eventually they grapple their way to being chest to bare chest, erections pressed together in Bucky’s right hand, which he’d paused to thoroughly lick first. The metal one is in Steve’s hair, at the back of his head, holding their mouths together so Bucky can shove his still-bloody tongue in. Steve pulls back from the kiss but not from Bucky’s body, wanting to chase the escaped drops of blood down his chin and onto his neck. He jolts and whines, but doesn’t stop stroking them. It’s transcendent. 

They both come shockingly fast, clinging to each other and shivering through it, and through it, and almost a minute later they’re still hard. 

“Jesus, Buck, c’mon. Don’t stop.” 

Bucky doesn’t. They go two more rounds after that, not flagging until they’re both nearly sobbing with over-sensitivity. 

“So,” Bucky says, still panting uselessly, “that’s new.” 

“Multiple orgasms?”

“Not exactly. Been able to do that since the Asset. Not that easily or intensely though, Christ. I meant the blood. It felt like my veins were on fire.” 

Steve chuckles. “I know the feeling.” 

“Did I taste that good?” There’s a quirk in Bucky’s lips, curiosity and the dregs of the desire they just worked through.

“Better,” Steve rasps, and kisses him again. He can feel them both, twitching in tandem as the whole affair starts anew.

“We need lube and a bed.” Bucky whispers against Steve’s mouth.

“Put the rest in the refrigerator and I’ll meet you there.”

“Roger that, Captain.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Mouth, by Bush. Y.T. prefers 'The Stingray Mix'. :)


	6. In the land of gods and monsters

Three days after that tension-filled argument with Bruce, which he won in more ways than one, Tony finally thinks he’s got a handle on things. Of course, that’s when he gets a call in his workshop from the main desk, the attendant asking he and JARVIS to look in on a situation. A video monitor lights up to his right, and Tony looks over to see a view of his lobby, packed with tourists and other gawkers, who all seem to be fawning over a man standing in the middle. Actually, two men: one very tall, blond, and built, and clearly enjoying the attention as he doles out high-fives; the other so similar, he looks like a miniature standing next to it’s model. It takes Clint Barton about ten seconds to find one of the hidden surveillance cameras, look into it, and start making complicated motions with his hands. His eyes are murderous but Tony has no idea what any of that means. “JARVIS, a little help with the translation?”

“Sir, Agent Barton has just used American Sign Language to inform you that if they are not escorted upstairs shortly, he will scale the building and cause you grievous bodily harm when he gains entry.”

“You can sign that?”

“Anything can be conveyed in ASL, sir. However, I paraphrased, for both our comfort.”

“I appreciate that. Get a security detail on them and have the lobby cleared. Bring them up to the common level in my private elevator, and tell the rest of the team to drop what they’re doing and join us.”

Tony minimizes the schematics he was working from and finds a shop towel to wipe his grubby hands on before heading for the stairs. Two floors down, he strolls into the couch filled living area off the large communal kitchen and dining area. Most of the amenities he put on this level for the Avengers to use have been gathering dust for a while, not to mention the UV filters he personally installed on every window for several floors in either direction to keep the resident nocturnes more comfortable, but hopefully, with Thor and Clint back in town some relaxing can finally happen around here. When he rounds the corner into the hall everyone is gathered around the elevator, waiting. The super soldiers stand together awkwardly like they’re unsure of their welcome. Bruce is cleaning his glasses on his shirt tail, which Tony is pretty sure is some kind of zen ritual. Today, the role of the 5’8”, raw nerve in the room is being played by Natasha Romanov. She’s visibly shaking with the effort of not pacing.

“Guys, this is a reunion, let’s lighten up a bit. This place cost me half a billion dollars, can you look happy to be here, please?” He puts on his best publicity face and grins at Natasha. She smiles tentatively, and he flatters himself that he helped.

The elevator doors slide open and Thor’s voice echoes around it and out into the living room. “My friends! It’s wonderful to be back in New York City! I’m happy to see your home is restored, Tony.” He strides out of the elevator car with two young women in tow, one of whom Tony recognizes as Dr. Jane Foster. A quick glance tells him Bruce does, too, and they’re all going to be really embarrassed over some fanboying very soon. Just as he’s about to open his mouth for introductions the energy in the room shifts and tenses, and everyone is watching Clint emerge from the car, eyes locked on Natasha’s. They both freeze, squaring off like animals sizing each other up. They’ve always communicated with more than words, and Tony’s always felt a little slow on the uptake around them, but he’s never felt like a voyeur seeing their intensity before. He does now and, to his embarrassment, has to look away. Neither of them seem to notice anyone else in the room regardless, and after a moment of silent transmission, Barton walks over, scoops Natasha up in a bridal carry, and strides right back onto the elevator.

“Wahoo! Score, Barton!” The diminutive brunette he doesn’t recognize raises a fist into the air and pumps once.

“And you are?” Tony inquires, not sure if he’s amused or annoyed. He wonders idly if this is how people feel about him most of the time.

“Darcy Lewis; Jane’s Lab Lackey and Thor’s Shield Sister.”

All eyes turn to Thor.

“This is the girl who tased you?”

Thor beams. “Yes!”

Tony decides that he likes Lewis. He’s plotting how to commandeer her as his own lab minion when he notices Barnes. He doesn’t really consider himself the protective type, but there’s something about the way the man sizes her up that makes his hackles rise. If he had hackles, or knew what they were.

Then, hugs are happening. Big, spine compressing, Asgardian hugs. Tony would be better about blocking the big guy’s enthusiasm but he’s got one eye glued to Lewis. She’s smiling at the super soldiers, and it’s the damnedest thing; a huge, shit-eating grin,  like she knows something she’s not supposed to, or just figured out someone else’s inside joke. Barnes takes a step towards her, or maybe he’s walking towards Thor. Tony doesn’t get to find out because Steve’s hand shoots out and wraps around Barnes’ metal limb.

Cap looks conflicted, like he’s torn between reigning in his man and not making a scene. Then again, it just sort of looks constipated to Tony. He’s not great about figuring out Steve’s facial expressions these days. Apparently scowl number six hundred and eight means ‘knock it off, Bucky’ because he’s dragging the other soldier back without so much as a ‘by your leave’ to Thor. They disappear through the back of the common kitchen and towards the gym where there’s a second elevator to the living quarters.

Tony doesn’t like the way Barnes licked his lips or the way Darcy didn’t seem to mind.

Fuck, he doesn’t need more vampires running around the place.

  


…

  


Jane’s attention is split, which is kind of a miracle in and of itself. The slender little astrophysicist oscillates between kissing and reprimanding her alien boyfriend. Darcy is, as per usual, absolutely no help when it comes to unpacking the contents of Jane’s lab. After multiple moves, her best friend has compressed the contents of their workspace down to, well, a science. This time, Darcy is enjoying sharing a bag of gummy bears with Thor and listening to them bicker. Well, not so much sharing as snatching one or two in between the behemoth's massive fists.

“Steven did not greet you both as you are due. His behavior was very strange and unlike him. I am concerned.” Thor looks down into his hand, at the pile of miniature bears and frowns.

Jane shrugs, stealing a gummy bear the spilled out onto the desk. “Tony mentioned something about a nasty fight they were both in. Maybe he’s shell-shocked?”

“Aye. Perhaps.”

The issue was obvious to Darcy. Somehow, Cap got himself and that hunk with the metal arm embraced. She didn’t exactly blame the guys for beating it out of there. New vampires could be skittish. Obviously, the two of them are neonates. She’d seen footage of the Battle of New York and Steve was definitely human then.

“Whelp. I’m gonna go check out my sweet digs. Don’t have sex on every available flat surface if you can help it.” She grins, Jane blushes, and Thor seems to consider the empty desk behind him.

  


…

  
  


“I’m just sayin’, there’s some people won’t necessarily be missed, Steve.”

“No. Never. End of discussion.”

“I don’t mean killin’, just…”

“Just what? A little sip? A nibble? Christ, how can you even think like that after what I did to you?” Steve winces, surprised at his own tone and volume.

“What you did to me?” Bucky shouts back, incredulous. “Stevie, _look_ _at me_! This is the best thing to happen to me since 1944.”

And, God help them both, that’s probably true.

Bucky paces near the entryway of their apartment, metal arm grinding as he flexes it unconsciously. He looks agitated, cagey. Steve isn’t exactly free of temptation but he’s managing to reel in his impulses. Buck isn’t so lucky. He wants to run something down, the Winter Soldier all but burned out of him with only skill and instinct remaining. He’s a charming and ruthless killer now, and neither of them have any illusions about that fact.

The past few days have been a blur of fucking and talking. Through the long, sleepless hours of the night they talk about everything, confessions of old and new feelings, drives, and needs. They’d been careful not to drink through their allotted blood, but it was proving difficult. Especially since they both admitted that it hit the spot, but not just right, and with the memory of Bucky’s blood spraying into his mouth, hot and alive, Steve knows it won’t be enough forever.

They both freeze at a knock on their door, the tension singing across Steve’s shoulder blades as Bucky sniffs at the air and strides towards the door. Steve can smell her, too: that delicious little brunette Thor dragged in with Foster, Darcy Lewis. He caught just the edge of it earlier, near the elevator. Something sweet, sugary. He’d thought for a second she might be chewing gum, but that wasn’t quite right. It reminded him of childhood, Coney Island, and street fairs, and candy floss. “Bucky, wait.”

Bucky stops, hand stretched out toward the doorknob, looking over his shoulder at Steve.

Another knock, somehow conveying annoyance, echoes through the room.

“JARVIS, tell her-” Steve starts to say, ‘we’re indisposed’, but Buck rolls his eyes, makes quick work of the latch, and pulls the door open.

The girl stands frozen in the open doorway, her hand raised in mid air, about to knock again. She’s wearing a fitted ‘Iron Man’ t-shirt and a red and yellow plaid skirt, like the ones the girls used to wear walking past the tenement on their way to Saint Joe’s every morning. Christ, Steve can see Bucky undressing her with his eyes. Not that he can blame him.

Bucky turns on his trademark wolfish smile and leans against the door frame. “Hey, kitten.”

“It’s Darcy, and let’s have none of...that.” She flutters a hand, indicating Bucky’s well-displayed physique in his white undershirt, and rolling her eyes. “Vampires can’t have sex, so turn off the smolder.” She smiles, wit and red lipstick a blunt instrument. Just like that, Bucky’s done for. One eyebrow rising, grin going crooked, and the hungry gleam in his eye turning just a little fond.

They both watch her in awe for a moment, and Darcy uses their lapse to duck into the room. She makes herself at home on one of the ugly pieces of modern furniture Stark put in, studying her nails intently.

“So, what clan are you guys? I’ve got you pegged as Brujah, but Barnes over there looks like he’s fully capable of sprouting some claws, so Gangrel is on the table.” Darcy beams up at Steve while he gapes back at her, no idea how to respond to that.

“Brujah... witches?” Bucky toys with the word a few times, rolling it over his tongue. Steve doesn’t quite get the reference either, but that’s nothing new. He shrugs.

“Miss Lewis, you know something about… what we are?”

“I know a thing or two, but your sire or sires should really be putting you through Kindred 101. I mean, what kind of shitty vampire embraces a bunch of super heroes and then tosses them into the steepest learning curve on the planet with no guidance?”

“Sire?” Steve and Bucky echo her automatically. Darcy looks distinctly uncomfortable. Her eyes go a bit wider and she presses herself back further into the cushions of the chair she chose, like she could get further away from them. 

“You...have no idea, do you?”

Their answering blank stare makes her gulp. “Shit.”

Steve takes that as his cue to take a big step back and pull Bucky with him by the shirt collar. Buck shakes him off. Then, he actually takes a few steps closer and around to the little couch across from her. Sitting, he pats the seat next to him. “Sit down, Stevie. You’re makin’ the girl nervous. You afraid of us, doll?”

“Well… a little bit, yeah. Young vampires, neonates, are usually kind of dangerous. Your sire- the vampire that helped you become one too- should be watching over you, teaching you stuff. Like, being around humans is kind of a no-no. Although, the humans you hang out with are either superpowered or super spies, so I guess that whole safety schtick is kind of moot.”

“I don’t have a sire.” Steve sighs, rubbing his hands together.

“And this one?” she asks, jerking her head in Bucky’s direction.

“Bucky. That was, uh, kind of an accident.”

“That’s… not even remotely possible. How do you ‘accidentally’, make him drink your blood, drink most of his blood, and then feed him more of yours before he loses consciousness? It’s a super, super intentional thing.”

Steve flushes and looks down at his hands. Even Bucky, shameless as he’s been in front of Tony, Bruce, and Nat, shifts a little in his seat. “It’s something to do with the serum. Dr. Banner tried to explain gene splicing to me but I’m sure it’s far more complicated than he made it sound. When Dr. Erskine created Project Rebirth, he used vampire DNA.”

Darcy just stares for a long second, blinking, like she doesn’t want to interrupt. Then, her brow furrows. “Wait, seriously? You should probably keep that to yourself for now. I can’t imagine the Camarilla will be too thrilled.”

Steve hasn’t felt so overwhelmed since the first time someone handed him a cellular phone after he woke up. “Would you mind defining some of these terms? We know about drinking blood, and that other vampires run in packs or… clans. That’s about it.”

“No problem,” she says, placating, seeming to sense his frustration. “The clans are kind of like breeds. You’ve got the major ones: Tremere, Brujah, Malkavian, Toreador, Ventrue, Gangrel, and Nosferatu. They sort of fall under a governing body called the Camarilla. Every major city has a ‘Prince’,  a sort of head-honcho vampire. Oh, and ‘the masquerade’. Vampires like to stay off the radar, for obvious reasons. They blend into the human world and you’ll need to do the same.”

That doesn’t really seem likely. Steve still has every intention of continuing to be Captain America. They’ve done some basic testing on how his skin reacts to sunlight. Mostly, it itches, like a day-old burn. It bothers his eyes, too, but sunglasses help and with the tinting Tony installed on the windows, he doesn’t need them at all inside. Still, he’s sure concessions will have to be made; modifications to the uniform, when and where he can go, etc. They’ve been lucky so far, going mostly ignored while what’s left of SHEILD scrambles to right itself. He’s happy to leave them to it.

“This is very educational, really, but why don’t we cut to the chase?” Anyone but Steve would miss Bucky’s little wince as he hisses out ‘chase’. “How do the other vampires of the world eat?”

“Usually, they feed on thralls. The vampires that aren’t pieces of shit, evil fucks, that is,” she snaps back with a pointed glare. “It’s a pretty big deal to kill an innocent. There are, like, tribunals, and blood hunts, and all kinds of nasty shit that can go down if you get caught.”

“What’s a thrall?” Steve asks, though, even as he says it, he’s pretty sure he knows the answer.

“Humans who volunteer their blood to vampires. Sometimes it’s for money or favors, or just because they’re friends. There are places you can go to, uh, meet one.”

Bucky huffs out a laugh. “Good-time girls? You remember them, Stevie.” He smacks the back of his right hand against Steve’s chest, and Steve looks over just in time to see him smile and wink. “We can handle that.”

“Hey!” Darcy snaps her fingers sharply, demanding their attention back. “A thrall is not necessarily a sex worker, and either way, you don’t pick one up on a street corner, you don’t use and throw them away like a juice box, and you sure as shit don’t disrespect them. Are we clear on that?”

Steve reaches over and grips Bucky’s thigh, worried he won’t respond well to Darcy’s harsh tone. He surprises everyone if the look on her face is anything to go by, when he gives her that sloe-eyed smolder again. “Haven’t been dressed down like that since 1945, kitten.” His fangs are easily visible when he grins at her.  

Darcy eyes them a little dubiously, but with clear interest. Obviously, no one told her about Bucky or she wouldn’t have asked. Does she know the rest, believe the rumors none of the Commandos ever confirmed, even long after Steve and Bucky were listed KIA? Bucky’s flirting is throwing her off, but it’s obviously not unwelcome and isn’t that… stimulating.

“We heard you loud and clear, Miss Lewis. I think bagged blood is fine for now,” Steve says, his turn to be placating.

She sighs. “Not really. Without fresh blood you guys won’t heal right after you know, saving the world, and you really won’t do well in the long run. Sooner or later, the instinct to hunt is going to get the best of you. I can take you somewhere, but Steve, you have to guarantee that you can control yourself, and him. There will be consequences if you can’t behave like you weren’t raised by wolves.”

Steve looks over at Bucky, and Bucky looks back at Steve. The read each other silently like no time has passed between them, and nod. “When can we pick you up, Miss Lewis?”

Darcy rolls her eyes dramatically and stands. “For the last fucking time, it’s Darcy, and _I’ll_ be picking _you two_ up. Tomorrow night, sun down. Don’t dress like hobos.”

  


…

  
  


Safely back in her own apartment, Darcy crawls into bed, plugs in her phone, and checks the app that tells her the exact time of sunset on the West coast. She dials her brother and turns on the speakerphone so she can lay it on her chest.

A slightly disgruntled and sleep roughened voice answers, “it’s a little early, Darce. Unlike you, I can’t just pour coffee down my throat until I’m caffeinated enough to function.”

“Whatever, old man. Sunset was fifteen minutes ago and it’s three hours later here. Some of us still sleep at night. Well, most of the night... morning. The point is, you can sacrifice a little coffin time for your darling baby sister.”

Mark laughs, low and rich, and Darcy finally relaxes. She hadn’t been _afraid_ of Bucky and Steve, per se, but it wasn’t a situation she would have put herself in if she had had all the facts. It made her a little tense.

“I suppose I can, darling baby sister. How’s… where the hell are you? You couldn’t tell me where you were going the last time we talked.”

“New York. It’s insanely big. I mean, London is technically bigger, but it didn’t feel like this, and when I think about Seattle… It’s bizarre. And infinitely cool.”

“I’m glad you like it. And I’m glad you’re even marginally closer to me. I miss your stupid face.”

“I miss your stupid face! I wish we could Skype or Facetime or something, but noooo. Someone had to go and get their reflection removed.”

“Ha ha. You’re so funny,” Mark deadpans, and Darcy cracks up.

It’s been nearly ten years and they’re still sort of getting used to it. They don’t talk about it; the shitty group homes they bounced around after their parents died, the inoperable brain tumor he was diagnosed with at 17, the experimental treatments no one wanted to pay for for an orphan who was about to age out of the system. He was too young and inexperienced to get a job with benefits, despite being a computer genius, but too old to qualify for most of the medical assistance programs. Like the perennial cliche, he slipped right through the cracks.

When Gideon Grove first approached to them and made Mark an offer, they thought he was a wacko. Who calls themselves a prince and claims they can cure cancer with their blood? He left a card, and while Darcy didn’t intend to ever call, she couldn’t seem to throw it away either. It sat in her wallet for two more months while Mark kept getting sicker. Eventually, they agreed any pitch was worth swinging at this late in the game. Darcy couldn’t go with him, and they said their goodbyes just in case. However, two days later, as the sun set over the bay, Mark walked out of Gideon’s house looking healthy and whole, and 20 forever. Just like Gideon promised.

“I called you before you go in for a reason, I need a quick favor.”

“Shoot, kiddo.”

“I was thinking of going out tomorrow night, check out the scene, meet some new people, maybe make a donation. I thought you could find out where I should go.”

Mark groans and Darcy rolls her eyes. “A club, Darcy? Really? Don’t get me wrong, I love that you’ve embraced vampire culture so thoroughly, but why are you staying on that side of it? Take a long weekend, come home and let me introduce you to some people. Gideon still asks about you.”

“Hey, we had the conversation you want to have just last month when you freaked out about my so-called ‘near-death experience’. Can we have the conversation I wanna have now, please?”

There’s a beat of silence, then a sigh. “Fine. I know who I can ask. I’ll text you some reputable names and addresses later tonight. Text me which one you’re going to and I’ll call ahead for you. I’ll feel better if people there know who you are.”

“Whatever makes you happy, Count Over-Protective. You know the kind of places I like.”

“Yeah, you always did have good taste in that at least. What happened with you and Ian the Intern, again?”

“What did I just say about conversations that _I_ want to have?”

He laughs again, shorter and brighter this time. “I’ve gotta go, Darce, but I’ll text you. And you better text me back before you go, I’m not kidding. Be safe.”

“Always. Now, I sleep like the dead. Supposedly we’re taking the day off tomorrow, but I doubt Jane’ll be able to hold out. I’ll probably be up and in the lab at 9.”

“I love that you think I sleep as deeply as you. I also love you, kid.”

“Love you, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is, in fact, a Saint Joseph's Catholic girl's school in Brooklyn, established in 1904. I don't actually know what their uniforms looked like in the 20's, but I don't think I need to make much of an argument for the idea that pleated skirts get Steve and Bucky hard. 
> 
> Chapter title, obviously, from the incomparable Lana Del Rey.


	7. You say you're hungry, I give you meat

The town car rolls to a stop in front of a little nightclub, with what looks like a bar underneath. Steve is on the curb side, so he gets out first and extends a hand to Darcy to help her after. Her heels click on the sidewalk and the full skirt of a dark, chiffon halter dress swishes around her knees as she stands. When she’d picked he and Bucky up at their door, she’d looked them up and down and pronounced Steve’s slacks and polo shirt ‘fine’, but made Bucky change into a button down and leave his hooded sweatshirt. (“The point is to seem like you belong, Barnes, not like you wandered in drunk. Tie your hair back, you look homeless.”) Darcy smooths her hands over the front of her dress, then indicates the wrought iron stairs that lead below street level. Steve stops to read the French words scrawled elegantly on the understated sign at the top.

“‘Mother’s Milk’?”

Darcy shrugs. “I promised you classy and discreet, not clever.” She regards him over to top of her glasses, not even trying to hide her amusement. Steve’s eyes tick up and catch Bucky’s over her head when he stops next to them. He obviously thinks this is funny, too, and Steve knows when he’s outnumbered. They both seem excited for this, like it’s going to be fun, and Steve fights the urge to adjust his slowly warming dick just from the way they’re looking at him. Instead, he gestures for Darcy to lead the way. Bucky follows her, winking at Steve before dropping his eyes to her bare shoulders, and Steve _has_ to adjust before he can attempt the stairs.

There’s a little reception room just inside the door. A woman stands behind a desk in the corner, with a phone in one hand and pen in the other, like the hostess at a restaurant. Steve is instantly uncomfortable. Darcy gives her name, but not theirs, and that grants them access to the next room. It seems huge, impossibly bigger than it could be from what he saw outside. There are a handful of honest-to-God gas chandeliers hanging in a row down the length of the room. They’re burning low, the rest of the illumination coming from floor lamps and little wall sconces that pool light sparingly over partially obscured alcoves where people gather. It reminds him strongly of some of the better brothels the men had dragged him to in France before he and Bucky charmed Peggy into their bed for what they’d all agreed would be the foreseeable future. The similarity just adds to his growing sense of dread and shame about being there in the first place.

Darcy walks over to the old fashioned wooden bar along the left side of the room and tells the man behind it that they’ve reserved booth 3. “Someone will be joining us; they’ll have their usual, on my tab, and I’d like a glass of malbec.” The man looks her over appraisingly and smiles a fanged smile until he sees Bucky sauntering up behind her. Steve can’t see Bucky’s face, but apparently the look he’s giving is enough to convince the man to back away and nod politely to Darcy’s request. So, that, at least, hasn’t changed.

Steve allows himself to be led toward the back of the room where there are smaller areas with low couches and cushions on the floor surrounding little oblong tables. Sections are marked out by heavy red velvet drapes that look like they can be drawn to give a little privacy if it’s desired. They head for the corner space, third from the left, and Darcy closes the curtains behind them.

“Make yourselves comfortable, and try not to look like serial killers or newbs.” She pauses where she’s perched, the far side of the little table from them, making sure to leave space for their donor once he or she arrives. “Looking at you, Barnes.”

“You look as much as you like, kitten.” Bucky relaxes into his seat and gives her his best slow smile. Steve leans over and kisses it. He can’t help it; it’s almost pavlovian by now. A week of having each other, touching whenever they want, and he still can’t get enough of that mouth.

Bucky transformed from the broken kaleidoscope of a man HYDRA created back into James Buchanan Barnes after he died. He swears up and down that it’s the best thing Steve’s ever done for him, but Steve still has nightmares about him staying dead. Agonizing, drawn out dreams of a stiff and lifeless Bucky in his arms, and a shallow, unmarked grave somewhere nondescript and isolated. He isn’t the only one who’s not sleeping much. Bucky sometimes wakes in the day, wrapped around Steve and crying out in Russian. They’ll never be the same, not really, but he’s going to kiss that grinning mouth anyway. It’s the best they’ll ever get, and it’s definitely enough. Someday Steve might even uncoil the rat’s nest of guilt he carries inside of him about changing Bucky this way in the first place.

After Bucky pulls back from their kiss Steve glances at Darcy. Someone had come to deliver her red wine, and a tray of fresh fruit pieces with two glasses, one filled with orange juice and one with ice water. Darcy holds her goblet in front of her in both hands, staring into the dark liquid, blushing.

Well, that’s... affecting. He leans over, brushing his lips over Bucky’s ear and whispers. “I think she likes watching us.”

His partner scans the girl while she pretends to ignore their intimacies. “Yeah. Kinda like it. You?”

“Yes,” Steve growls. It’s not right, the way Darcy looks tonight, in this place, and the way the anticipation of tasting live blood again is making him squirm with guilty pleasure. Where those two feelings intersect, a wicked though is forming about her, Bucky, and himself, and whether blood stains will come out of charcoal chiffon. He tries to redirect, to imagine it with anyone but her. It doesn’t work. The thought of taking what he needs from strangers when he has these two making eyes at one another right in front of him? It would be laughable if he wasn’t so damn uncomfortable.

Another woman appears through the gap in the velvet drapery and all thought of a liaison with Bucky and Darcy in a dark corner evaporates as his stomach turns into a series of complicated knots. She’s thin and blonde, and pretty in an overly made-up way. Her wrists look like pale beech tree branches and everything about her seems like glass about to shatter. “I’m Evelyn.” She smiles, coy in a way that seems a little practiced.

Darcy stands to greet her and Steve scrambles up, too, followed by a smirking Bucky. “Hello, I’m Darcy. Please allow me to introduce Steven and James.”

It’s strange to hear Darcy speak like that. She swears more casually than he does and, while she’s always kind, her manners leave something to be desired. Here, though, she’s poised and practiced, like she’s reading from a script, and Steve’s stomach clenches a little more.

“Gentlemen, it’s a pleasure,” Evelyn says, with a little nod of her head. “Do we have any preferences for the evening? An order in which you want to proceed, a preferred area to feed from? I usually like my guests to begin negotiations, and I’ll make the final determination.”

Steve looks to Bucky and finds him looking back, eyebrows near his hairline. The man’s no help, but it’s nice to know something still shocks him. He looks back to Darcy, certain everything about his current posture is screaming ‘ _help_ ’, and, bless her, she does.

“I think it would be best to keep it simple. Is feeding from the wrist amenable to you?”

“That’s fine,” Evelyn replies, easily. “Why don’t I just have a seat there, between the two of you?” She smiles at him again, and he thinks it’s meant to be flirtatious, but just comes off crass. They’re off on entirely the wrong foot here. She looks back to Darcy. “And you? Will you be staying?”

“Yes. My friends would prefer it. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before, I assure you. There won’t be a problem.”

Evelyn nods in agreement, steps past Darcy, and insinuates herself between Steve and Bucky. “Why don’t we start with you, Steven?” she asks, holding the supple underside of her wrist out like an offering. “I’ll tell you when I need you to stop.”

Carefully, slowly, Steve takes her hand in one of his, holding her elbow in the other, and brings her arm up to his lips. He looks up from this woman’s waifish wrist, hoping to catch Buck’s eyes for some reassurance. Bucky’s not looking at him, though. Bucky is staring past him, across the little alcove, and straight at Darcy with such unguarded lust, it makes something is his chest kick, hard. Steve tries to get a look at her, as best he can without turning, and what he sees makes him gasp. While Bucky watches her, she’s gazing longingly right at his own mouth. He knows his fangs are exposed; he can feel their presence lately, like they have a mind of their own. This girl’s wrist is nearly in his mouth, muscles twitching as she tries to relax, her blood so close he can smell it underneath her skin and some odd citrus soap he doesn’t care for, but Darcy is looking at him expectantly and licking her lips like she can’t wait to watch him take the first bite of a home cooked meal and he absolutely _cannot_ do this.

Steve drops Evelyn’s arm like it burned him and shifts as far away from her on the couch as he can. His movement breaks the spell on Bucky and Darcy, and both dark heads tilt questioningly at him.

“I don’t- This…” Steve says, but can’t seem to finish a thought. He has no valid objection to any of this, he just knows it feels wrong. It’s not… intimate enough. What he saw in Bucky and Darcy’s eyes tonight, that was intimacy. Intensity. Longing. That’s what he wants. Anything less may as well be… masturbation. He shakes the thought away. “We’re not doing this.”

Steve gets up from the couch and pulls the curtain back, hearing Bucky follow his lead. Behind him, Darcy apologizes and insists Evelyn should stay and eat the food, maybe have a drink on her, before she follows, too. He can hear her heels clicking angrily on the polished floor, but he’ll deal with that later. Right now, he needs to get the hell out of here.

 

...

 

 To her credit, Darcy waits to give Steve his dressing down until they’re safely buckled into the town car. “What the actual fuck is your problem, Rogers?” Her voice is low, another point on her ‘Dracy is a reasonable adult’ scorecard.

“I can’t do this,” he says, eyes on the floor, wringing his hands in his lap. “It feels wrong.”

“Wrong?! What the hell is wrong with consent? Do you know what the alternative is, Steve? It’s forcing some stranger against a wall in a dirty alley, feeding on someone you just got done fighting, pouncing on some hapless night janitor in the Tower!”

From the stricken look on his face, she’s pretty sure he understands what taking something against someone else’s will makes him.

“That’s not who Steve is.” Bucky’s voice is low and dangerous, almost a growl. The kind of sound an animal makes before it goes for the throat.

“And who are you, Barnes?” Darcy snaps. He looks back at her, resigned, like he knows who he is and might not like it.

“With all due respect, Darcy, I think I just proved I can control my desires.”

Darcy sighs, pushing her glasses up her nose. “I’m sorry; did you or did you not murder your best friend and lover less than a week ago?” That came out a little harsher than she intended. Steve visibly flinches. Shots fired.

“That was my fault,” Bucky interjects. “I didn’t care-”

“Yeah, well, some people do. You two got lucky.” Darcy pauses, watching as Steve leans forward, slowly crumbling into himself. It hurts a little, but she’s got to wound him to make him see sense. “Do you think Tony or Clint could go toe to toe with either of you? What about that cute PA he’s got running around the Tower. She’s twenty years old, and on your floor a lot. Alone.” She can see Bucky’s eyes narrow on Steve. The pain knits between his brow as he chokes on something. She’s not sure if it’s a sob or a cough. “I know you can smell her. Hell, the Tower’s ripe with easy targets. Look me in the eye and tell me you’ve never thought, even briefly, of cornering any one of them?”

Steve raises his head, he looks determined to set her straight but Bucky speaks first. “I followed her to reception one day.”

Steve’s head whips around to Bucky, shock all over his face.

“She smelled like cinnamon and I just- I don’t even know what I wanted. It wasn’t good, though.” Barnes doesn’t look her in the face. There’s a tense silence before he adds, “But no one smells as nice as you do, kitten. So I wouldn’t be too worried.” He catches her eye, something like lust and affection. How does one man contain all of that in a glance?

“Bucky, you can’t do that. We talked-”

“No, you told me, Steve! I’m in this with you, but you need to think twice about making decisions for the both of us. Darcy is right, and I know you feel it too. Don’t think I don’t notice the way you track Pepper across a room, or the guy who delivered pizza to the lab the other day. You’ll bottle it all up and then it’ll come spilling out. At least I’m trying to release it.”

Steve, thoroughly chastised, lets his shoulders slump forward. “I’m sorry.” It sounds like he’s saying it to both of them.

“It’s ok, you didn’t ask for this,” Darcy says, hoping it’s at least a little helpful. She can’t even fathom a situation like theirs. The embrace, the bestowing of it, is so personal. That neither one of them had the chance to choose it breaks her heart. Maybe that’s why she wants to help them so badly, even if it puts her life in danger. She doesn’t know the whole story, but she does know that they are different; they’re not like other vampires and that gap in knowledge could prove deadly.

It’s hard to put herself first, though, watching the two of them lean into one another, seeking a kind of comfort they know they can’t find. “What about me?”

The sensation of being the absolute focus of two super soldiers is a little unsettling. If they take her up on the offer she’ll have to get used to it.

“You’d do that for us?” Steve asks, his voice gone a little high. He sounds like she’s offering him her first born child on a high altar.

“Sure,” she shrugs. “I’ve done it before, for friends.”

“Someday you’ll have to tell us how a lab assistant made friends with a bunch of vampires,” Bucky says, one arm wrapped around Steve’s shoulders. He seems much more relaxed than Steve. Then again, he’s never tried to hide his interest in Darcy’s neck.

“No, I don’t. Which brings me to the matter of rules. The rules I set and you follow if you agree.”

Steve and Bucky share a silent conversation that looks like something between an argument and pillow talk. Good fucking gods, those two are going to fill her masturbatory fantasies for years.

“We would enjoy that,” Steve finally says. Darcy’s a little shocked, she thought he’d refuse and the entire argument would go on in maddening circles. It must be plain on her face because he back peddles none too smoothly. “I mean, we would appreciate it. There wouldn’t be any, no expectation of-”

Darcy can feel herself blushing. “I know, don’t worry about it. It must be strange to deal with, but I understand. It’s intimate, but it’s not sex. I won’t confuse the two.”

Bucky and Steve look even more uncomfortable. Fine, moving on then.

“I’ll need about a week to get ready. Just to make sure I’ve consumed enough iron and my diet is up to snuff. I’ll have to increase my caloric intake and take better care of myself all around.”

“Change your diet, how?” Steve asks, licking his lips.

“More red meat, green leafy vegetables, etc. Basically, think of a diet prescribed to someone with low iron.”

Steve nods and smiles. “Let me.”

Darcy blinks. “I’m sorry?”

“I’ll cook for you. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You can drop by our place before work and I’ll make sure you’re taken care of. It would be my pleasure.”

She was not mentally prepared for Captain America to offer to make her food. Or the way he says ‘pleasure’. “Umm, I guess-”

“It’s the least we can do, and Steve is a better cook than you’d think. He kept me fed before the war.” Bucky swipes his thumb across the shell of Steve’s ear and he shudders. “He was a cute little house-”

“Shut up, punk. I was too sick to do anything else.” They smile at one another. Bucky leans down for a quick, chaste kiss, and Darcy doesn’t know if she should feel bad about being turned on or not. She pictures Steve in nothing but a frilly little apron, standing at his stove flipping pancakes, and decidedly cuts off that train of thought.

“We just need to negotiate the-”

“Please, don’t use that word. Let’s stick to rules.”

“Okay. Wrists only, one at a time, and when I say you’re through, you’re through. You can’t just leave me, either. You’ll need to stand by with juice and crackers, make sure I don’t choke on my own tongue.”

Bucky is avidly listening, Steve looks like he’s going to swallow _his_ own tongue. Fear, and worry, and raw, open desire fighting for dominance in his face.

“We’ll take care of you.” It’s Bucky that says so, like he’s swearing an oath. Steve just nods and threads his fingers through the metal hand in his lap.

“What you’re doing, Darce, it means so much to us,” Steve says, the sincere bastard ripping up her heart and her panties at the same time.

Her smile softens, and she forgets why she’s annoyed with him for a heartbeat or two. “It’s ok. I’ve seen how much difference a live donor can make to a vampire. It’s nothing. I mean you two have probably saved my life directly or indirectly, like, dozens of times.” Darcy pauses, and her grin turns just a tad sadistic. “Besides, if you step a toe out of line, Thor will squish you into jelly and leave you out in the sun.” She doesn’t mention Gideon Grove or Mark and what would happen if they decided to get involved, but she’s keeping that close to her chest for now. Not even Jane knows about her life back in Seattle.

The car stops, back in the garage beneath the Tower, jarring the two super soldiers out of their lightning tinged nightmares. Darcy gives them one last impish grin. “Oh, and you should practice biting one another. You know, so you figure out how to do it gently. It won’t nourish you, but it feels good for vampires to share blood with one another, so have fun with that.”

Then she climbs out of the car, leaving Bucky and Steve with dropped fangs, staring at one another like someone just told them how to work their dicks.

 

…

 

“Do you think it feels the same?” Bucky whispers against Steve’s shoulder. They didn’t waste any time getting home and shedding their clothes. He still hasn’t forgiven Steve for making the decision to bale on the pretty little thing offering her his wrist. Then again, they wouldn’t have Darcy if he hadn’t. He can’t be that mad.

He’s got Steve panting against his hair, little whiney breaths that make him feel like a teenager again. Only, when they were teenagers, he never felt the desire to shove Steve around, hold him down like this. He lets some slack into the leash he’s been keeping these new urges on, wondering how far Steve will really let him take this.

“What?” Steve huffs out, craning his neck back to give Bucky better access.

“Do you think it’ll feel the same when we bite her?” He lets his fangs drop, pulling one of Steve’s legs high across his own back, the other hanging off the side of the couch. Bucky is crowding into his space, erections pressed together, but he won’t return the desperate little thrusts Steve is giving him. “When you were drinking from me… it felt so peaceful, like floating on my back in warm water.” He can feel the aggression bubbling under his skin and silently thanks Howard Stark he can be as rough as he wants with Steve without hurting him. Darcy was right; this will be a good way to gauge the damage they could do, get a sense of his own strength again.

“Fuck, Bucky, tell me.” Steve’s lips are swollen and bruised, pink blooming on them from the sloppily kissing with two sets of fangs.

“Never felt anything like it before, and I needed you to fuck me. I felt you everywhere, like you were in my bones.” He’s through wasting time. When he bites down into the juncture where Steve’s neck meets his shoulder the other man groans.

“Oh, _god_ , too hard.”

Bucky pulls himself away, the sensation of his fangs slipping from the Steve’s skin almost as satisfying as puncturing it in the first place. “You okay?” he slurs, blissed out, feeling drunk for the first time in decades.

Steve groans, long and low. “Doesn’t hurt, just felt your teeth in the muscle. Can’t-” he gasps as a little thrust up finally gets him some friction. “Can’t do that to our girl.”

Bucky grins, gory and warm. “She’s our girl now?” He licks Steve’s neck; a broad stripe over his teeth marks and up to Steve’s ear. By the time he’s licked his way back to his lover’s mouth, the wounds have already closed.

“You can’t tell me you’re not thinking about it, Buck.” Steve arches up again and Bucky takes pity on him, meeting him halfway while rooting around behind the cushions to find the lube he’s stashed there. “No, not yet. Bite me again.” Steve whispers, bringing his hand up to cup Bucky’s jaw, exposing his wrist. Bucky can see the bright blue vein under the skin, so stark against all that whiteness. He hesitates, mouth hovering over the offering.

“You think I’m gonna hurt her?” He isn’t insulted, exactly. There’s hurt there, but it’s not really surprising. What upsets him is that he knows it’s warranted.

“No- not on purpose…” Even the cool slide of their cocks and the way Steve’s blood is swirling like liquor in his veins can’t distract either of them from that concern. “I know you don’t trust yourself, but you will. We can do this every night until we’re both satisfied.”

Bucky smirks, the breath he doesn’t need ghosting cool on the other man’s wrist. “Oh, what an imposition.”

Steve starts to chuckle but the sound peeters out into a slow, anguished gasp as Bucky bites down onto his wrist. The good kind of agony. Bucky tries, he tries damn hard. He concentrates on the resistance his fangs meet and notes where the tendon and bone are.

“Oh, fuck, Bucky...that’s so good…”

Steve’s free hand grabs a handful of his ass and squeezes hard enough to bruise. He growls and reaches down, rubbing the pad of his thumb against Steve’s dry pucker.

“Ung- just...just do it…”

Bucky huffs, unlatching from Steve’s wrist and finding the lube. Thinking of these little practicalities when they're both so blown is trying. “Impatient, idiot.” He laughs, slicking up two fingers and working them in a little harder and faster than he probably should. Steve’s always liked it that way, though. When they fell back together during the war, Steve wanted this from Bucky, wanted to feel solid and settled in his new body. Wanted to abuse it, just because he could.

As per usual, Bucky’s happy to comply. “I want you to taste me while I’m inside of you.” Steve grunts, three fingers slamming into his body as it stretches around his attention. “Just like you’re gonna taste our girl.”

Steve whines, hips meeting Bucky’s flesh hand with each snap. He thinks they might have some problems later, what with the aphrodisiac in their fangs, but that’s too complex of a thought to hold onto while Steve is beginning to bed to be fucked. “You… talk… too… damn.. mu-”

Bucky gives Steve a few breaths to complain before he pulls his fingers out and lines up, slamming into the other man’s body. He grins as the last word dies in the back of Steve’s throat.

He’s always so tight; it honestly scared Bucky back in Germany. Steve tended to thrash and flail and clench down tight over his cock. Now, he just enjoys the tightness, the way Steve’s body pulls at his skin as he slides out, and then sinks back in. He keeps it slow and gentle, despite the hunger clawing at him under his skin, just to drive Steve a little crazy.

“Harder, fuck, Bucky. Baby, you know I can take it.” Steve still has a hand kneading his ass, trying to pull him in harder.

Bucky shakes his head. “Bite down,” he growls, surging forward onto his forearms and baring his neck. Steve’s pupils blow wide and his arms wrap around to grip Bucky’s shoulders, pulling him down to his mouth.

It’s uncoordinated, almost reckless. Bucky can feel little trails of blood rolling down his chest and stomach, smearing between them where they touch. It’s not the same as before, but, Jesus, it’s so close. He loses himself in it, chasing that feeling of euphoria, the peace he found last time Steve had his teeth in his throat. His hips pick up the pace, slamming into Steve so hard the otherwise sturdy mod couch groans with each stroke.

They may actually break this ugly piece of shit. Christ.

With a groan that Bucky feels in his cock, Steve releases his neck and falls back onto the couch. His lips and chin are smeared in blood, running down the sides of his mouth in rivulets. Bucky can see the fangs in his wide open mouth and they’re stained bright red. He’s never seen Steve so debauched and it should sicken him, the way it looks like he’s just torn someone’s throat out, but i just makes him dip down and seal his lips over Steve’s.

They kiss, hard, as bruising as Bucky’s pace, and taste one another. He and Steve, their blood one blood and their body mingling as one body. He whimpers, unable to hold back anymore. The swell of love and completion is what does him in. He thinks about having this forever, out in the open and honest.“I love you, oh God Steve-” Bucky breaks their kiss as the other man clenches around him, feeling his release painting their stomachs and he comes as well, almost simultaneously.

Bucky doesn’t understand why he’s shaking, or how he’s still half-hard inside of Steve. He’s being held gently to his lover’s chest, there’s no reason to shiver like this. So why does his body feel like something about to crack open?

“I’ve got you. I love you.” Steve murmurs to him, fingers carding through his too-long locks. They’re quiet for a long moment, both of them truly still while Bucky pulls himself through whatever this is. Then, Steve says, “I think it’s about time you had a haircut, Buck.”

Bucky laughs lowly, pulling out and staining the fabric of the couch. “Mmm, you might be right.”

 

...

 

As soon as Darcy’s door shuts behind her she’s kicking off the strappy heels and pulling at the zipper of her dress. It occurs to her, belatedly, that she could have just pulled the damn thing up around her hips and dealt with it later, but when you have blood covered super soldiers on the brain you get a little slow. She pulls the strap over her head, tangling her hair even further, and lets the good fabric fall carelessly on the hallway floor as she makes a beeline for her bed.

Christ, those two are sexy. The way they look at each other… Darcy doesn’t remember her mom and dad very clearly anymore. She doesn’t remember if they were in love, or if they loved her and Mark, before they died. Her various foster parents weren’t really the pictures of functional, happy relationships either. Despite a few serious entanglements, no one has ever made Darcy feel the level of passion Steve and Bucky obviously have between them. The closest thing to it she’s ever experienced is sharing her blood, and she only does that with strangers or casual friends, never letting sex get involved, and what does that say about her emotional maturity?

She immediately deems those thoughts unhelpful and ‘buzzkilly”, pushes them aside, and goes back to thinking about that kiss. The beautiful, tender, fanged kiss. She flops face down on the bed, groaning into her pillow. She’s never even kissed a vampire. Fantasizing about it is a whole other thing. She shouldn’t, not about them, not after what she just agreed to, but she’s going to, because she should be allowed some joy in this life. Rocking her shoulders and hips, settling down into the fluffy blankets and enjoying the way her nipples tighten brushing against the cool fabric, she pictures it again. Steve kissing Bucky. Bucky in that thrall’s position, sitting demurely next to Steve, offering up his flesh and blood wrist.

Maybe… maybe the other way around. Steve would be polite about it, she thinks; all neat little cuts and tightly sealed lips so he doesn’t spill. Bucky wouldn’t be able to control himself. He’d bare his fangs like a movie monster and sink them in, let the blood ooze out around them and into his mouth. Steve would whimper, but he’d never pull away. He’d probably get closer, in fact; maybe he’d climb up into his lover’s lap (because no way is that boy not a certified switch) and let him lick at the blood while it slides in thick drips down his forearm.

Darcy briefly considers the battery operated boyfriend in her night table drawer, but when she snakes a hand underneath herself and down into her panties to gauge how ready she is, she decides it’s unnecessary. She only wishes her fingers were colder.

Not important. Bucky and Steve… Steve and Bucky on that gaudy red velvet couch at the club, kissing blood into each other’s mouths, like they’re passing a piece of gum back and forth. Just the thought of seeing their tongues touching has Darcy circling her hips and grinding down onto her hand.

The boys have lost their clothes somewhere along the line, their pale skin glowing in the warm light from the incandescent bulbs, almost looking alive. Almost looking like angels, if it weren’t for all the gore. It’s drying on Steve’s forearms and Bucky’s neck and chest. Around their mouths, it’s still wet and shiny, fresh and viscous with saliva. They break their kiss for a moment and turn their sharp eyes to Darcy. She’s not fully formed in her own fantasy. Is she sitting quietly, just watching the show, or do they catch her just like this: touching herself and rubbing her feverish forehead into the soft fabric under her? Doesn’t matter. Whatever they see, they like it. They reach out, both of them, opposite hands dripping blood and beckoning her over to join them.

It doesn’t take much. In her head, one hand wraps around her throat and the other goes straight between her legs. Cupping, slipping roughly inside, rubbing hard circles against her clitoris. She imagines the coolness of their skin slipping on a warm sheen of blood over her body and her thighs spasm and squeeze together so hard she’s hurting her own hand. Her hips come up off the mattress and she tucks her knees under her to ease her writhing.

Everything coalesces into the perfect moment: the perfect position, the perfect friction of her thighs, the perfect pressure on her clit, the perfect sheen of sweat she turns to cooling blood in her mind. She comes like a bomb going off and hopes, belatedly, that these apartments have soundproofing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Get Down, Make Love, by Queen. If you're a NIN fan, you should definitely check out their cover.


	8. A friend in need's a friend indeed (a friend who bleeds is better)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some snippets from a week, leading up to their first time. Sharing blood, that is. 
> 
> Chapter title from Pure Moring, by Placebo.

Steve leaves Bucky dozing in bed and pulls on some shorts and a t-shirt. He’s not tired yet, and he’s got big plans for the few hours he has before sunrise. Wishing he’d thought to ask Darcy what she likes to eat, he thinks about the meager contents of their refrigerator and what he can prepare now to box up for her lunch. “JARVIS, where can I order groceries and have them delivered this time of night?” he asks, closing the bedroom door behind him.

“There are three commercial food suppliers in Manhattan that are opening now. Only one begins deliveries at 3 AM.”

“If they can have it here by 4 I’ll pay double. Now, what do I get for her... “

“If I may, Captain Rogers, Miss Lewis has imported many of her personal files to my unsecured server for her convenience. They include a weekly grocery list.”

“Perfect. Cut out extra sugar, double the fruit and vegetables, and add a few pounds of chicken, some pasta, and a case of tomatoes. Plus the usual staples. Thanks, JARVIS.”

“Word to the wise, Cap: I wouldn’t get between Darcy and Oreos unless you’re ready for a scrape.”

Steve looks up toward the voice as he emerges from his hallway and finds Clint Barton sitting on the kitchen countertop, stools pushed aside so he can swing his feet like a kid. “Never would, they’re just not part of my meal plan. Something I can do for you?”

“You were right about HYDRA.”

Steve gulps, fighting down the dread in his stomach. “Sam?”

“Fine,” he replies. “‘Tasha and I found him in Pennsylvania, making his way slowly toward D.C., motel by motel. He knew he was being watched so he didn’t go straight home, and he couldn’t get in touch with you because, like every man over 65, you sometimes forget you have a cellphone. She went with him, tying up his loose ends in Washington while I doubled back along his path to take care of his tails.”

Steve doesn’t need to ask what Clint means by ‘take care of’. “So we’re good? No one knows where we are?”

“I doubt it. Found the smoking wreckage the Winter Soldier dragged you out of. Looked pretty clean to me, no extra tracks in or out. I figure if they want him back bad enough they’ll come sniffing around here eventually, but for now, between all of us, we made a pretty good dent. Lay low for a while and you’ll be safe. This is as good a place as any.”

Steve feels like a weight has fallen off his shoulders. Sam is fine, they weren’t followed, they’ve still got some time and space to figure all this out.

“So, any particular reason you just ordered about two weeks worth of Darcy’s favorite foods to _your_ apartment?”

“It’s... “ He’d started to say ‘it’s complicated’, but, truthfully, it’s not. It’s simple and straightforward, and if Darcy’s not ashamed of it why should he be? It’s a huge sacrifice on her part, something she’s doing selflessly for he and Bucky. Steve’s proud of her, in an odd way; impressed by her, even. He can’t cheapen that by lying about it to their friends. He sighs. “Darcy is going to be our main blood donor. We’ll probably have to supplement with bagged blood, but Darcy is helping us so we don’t have to continually find willing people. She said it would require some lifestyle changes and I told her I wanted to help. So, I’m making her meals. Lots of vitamins and iron to keep her red blood cell count up. Happy?”

“Well, not exactly.” Clint wrinkles his nose. “Thanks for telling me, though. If I’d had to find out on my own, you and me would have had a problem.”

This is shakey ground. On one hand, Steve’s always been the team leader in the field. He calls the plays, steers the fight, and hands out accolades when the dust settles. On the other, without SHIELD, he’s not sure there is a team anymore. They’re here, in Avengers Tower, the place Tony Stark set up for them all to be together, but without a common goal are they all just mercenaries under the same roof? There’s no rank to pull and, even if he wanted to try, he knows if Barton were here with any kind of intent he’d never have even seen him. Steve pushes down the rush of defensiveness, tries to keep his cool. “Don’t worry. We won’t.”

Clint regards him steadily for a minute, then shrugs. “I’m gonna level with you here, Cap. Natasha told me about everything that happened between you and- what do I can him now? I doubt he wants to be the Winter Soldier forever.”

“His name is James, but I’ve only ever heard his ma actually call him that. Most people try ‘Sergeant Barnes’ until he tells them to call him Bucky.”  His voice comes out a bit stiff, brusque. Maybe he’s more defensive than he wants to admit to himself. He doesn’t apologize, though; Clint of all people should understand due respect among soldiers. The slight flinch says he does.

“Right. Fair enough. The point is, I know what’s going on here, and I know that Darcy does, too. She’s a grown-up, and I’m not her father, so I won’t try to stop any of you. I just want to be clear. Jane Foster and Darcy Lewis saved my ass in Europe. All I got was an emergency message from ‘Tasha, on a line she burned immediately after, that my op was blown and I should run. If I hadn’t still been in the loop about Thor, or they had turned me away, I don’t know what would have happened. They’re good, selfless, naive civilians. I hope you know what you’re doing.”

The gentle earnestness of his voice cracks through Steve’s stubborn pride. His shoulders sag a little and he reaches up to rub a hand over his face. “Christ, so do I.”

“I’m willing to admit I don’t really understand the nuances of a transaction like this, but you seem kinda, I don’t know, _eager_. What are trying to do here, Steve? Are you… wooing her?”

Steve lets the question hang in the air for a moment. He decided not to lie once, he shouldn’t start now. “I, uh, yeah. I think we intend to. I don’t know if she’ll want something like that, but it feels like something’s there. Bucky and me, we’ve talked about it before. Even if we couldn’t have a family anymore, I think we’ve always thought there would be someone else who completed us. I would do anything if Darcy wanted to be that person… I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

Clint smiles sympathetically. “I have one of those faces. People open up to me. It’s been very helpful.” They both laugh a little, trying to relax into the more familiar territory of the banter. It doesn’t last long. “I’m gonna try to remain impartial, okay? My comfort with the situation doesn’t matter; Darcy’s does. If there’s anything at all I can do to enhance her comfort level, one of you just let me know. We understand each other?”

Steve nods. “Perfectly.” Clint hops down and heads for the door, but Steve can’t let him leave on that note. “Thanks, Clint. For-,” he makes a vague, encompassing gesture between them, hoping that will be enough. He gets a stiff nod and a soft, fond smile in return, then Clint’s gone.

Well, that could have gone worse.

 

…

 

Darcy and Mark were never lucky enough to land in the kind of cushy suburban household that made a big deal out of breakfast. In fact, it’s generally a meal Darcy skips. She figures the cream in her coffee is protein, and the copious amounts of simple syrup she dumps in too are enough to speed her on into lunch.

Steve feels differently. Apparently, JARVIS gave up the goods on her dietary habits and Steve had already sketched out a menu, and it seems Captain America is not one to half-ass, well, anything. When she drags her mangled, sleep-starved carcass into their apartment at half past six Monday morning she’s not prepared for a breakfast feast. A bowl of fresh cantaloupe, scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns and french press coffee awaits her. She takes one look at the offering grabs the coffee, the sack lunch, and a single piece of cantaloupe before slogging back out.

Steve’s frown and disappointed cries of ‘what about your breakfast!?’ fall on deaf ears.

“Next time, make me a smoothie. I can’t handle solid food before 10 AM.” Darcy closes the door behind her, Steve visibly crestfallen and Bucky laughing softly. She feels a little bad by the time she gets to the elevator, but it’s seriously too early in the morning for her to untangle the mess of how both of them waiting for her to come over so they can watch her eat makes her feel.

The prepared lunch is just as overwhelming, but for completely different reasons. Steve left a handwritten note inside. That he wrote. With his stupid, gorgeous, probably very dextrous, super hero hands. Fuck him for being both sexy and earnest. She can hardly stand it.

_Remember to drink four eight-ounce glasses of water before dinner! Thank you, again. -Steve._

His handwriting is beautiful, just like everything else about him. Somehow rigidly loopy, the kind of old-timey script she’s seen in those coffee table books full of old love letters.

Darcy unwraps her lunch, packed in a simple steel container. He used a red and white checkered napkin to wrap a crusty loaf of wheat bread that looks home made. Next to that she finds a bowl of cold potato leek soup and a cut up chicken breast seasoned to absolute perfection. Her toes curl into her flats as she digs into the meal. She’s making pleased little noises and doesn’t really notice or care, until Jane stops to watch her shovel another spoonful of soup into her mouth and collapse back into her chair.

“Tell me there’s someone under your desk, or share some of that soup.”

Darcy lets out a startled little yelp and drops the spoon with a clatter. “Can’t a girl enjoy her lunch? It’s not like you’ve voluntarily fed yourself since last week.”

Jane shrugs and pulls a chair over next to Darcy. She’s so used to Darcy being responsible for her meals that she doesn’t think twice about snagging a piece of bread and sopping up some soup to taste.

“God damn, you’ve been holding out on me. This is fantastic! It’s cold, even!”

Darcy just rolls her eyes and makes some room for Jane to work on her meal with her. It’s really too much food anyway. Who does Steve think she is? Him? “I didn’t make it, Steve did.”

“Well, that’s… kind of him?”

“He said it was the least he could do.”

Jane narrows her eyes. “How did you get Captain America to owe you a favor?”

“Umm… considering that you routinely bang the Actual God of Thunder, your ability to suspend disbelief is pretty solid, right?”

Jane frowns, definitely unhappy with where this is going. “It’s not hard to explain Thor with science.”

“Try this: Vampires exist. Steve and Bucky are vampires. I am donating my blood to them. Because they’re vampires.”

Jane looks like she’s trying to process one thing at a time, and failing, so she just asks the next obvious question. “And… Steve is packing you a lunch because you’re packing his lunch. And by lunch I mean blood. The blood from your body.” She looks vaguely disgusted by the idea. Darcy blushes, and it’s not a fun blush. It’s shame shooting up her spine and lodging someplace in her brain where it’ll do maximum damage when she’s in the shower with nothing else to think about. Jane notices and immediately backpedals. “Is it, uh, dangerous?”

“No, I’ve done it before.” Darcy’s voice is smaller than she means it to be.

“Is what dangerous?” Somehow, Thor managed to enter the lab, cross the room, and lean against her desk without either woman noticing. He smiles at their surprise. “I am known to be stealthy.”

“You’re known to break things,” Darcy mutters, and turns back to her food. She doesn’t feel like talking about her plans anymore; she’s not sure she wants to take the image of Jane’s scandalized and worried face with her when she meets the boys later.

“Darcy is umm... is-”

Every inch of Jane’s face looks like an apology and Thor isn’t nearly as thick as everyone thinks he his. “Does this have anything to do with Steven and James?”

Suddenly, Darcy isn’t very hungry. She feels a lecture coming on and it might be worst than those conversations she doesn’t like to have with Mark. “Yes.” She’s done a lot of questionable things, but she’s never really felt dirty about it. The feeling is beginning to creep in, and it’s so surprising and horrible her face must be telegraphing her discomfort because Thor kneels down in front of her, his huge, calloused encircling her tiny ones.

“Lady Darcy, I have my suspicions, but perhaps you can confirm them. Are Steven and his companion Draugr?”

She has no idea. “Are they what?”

“Warriors who walk after death. Creatures who used to be men, but now are other.”

Darcy bristles a little. She can’t help it. It’s hard to hear people talk about vampires that way, even though she knows it comes from a place of legitimate misunderstanding and fear. How would she feel about the idea if she hadn’t been through the whole process with Mark? “They’re vampires; they’re not monsters.”

“Of course they’re not. Forgive me, I didn’t mean to imply they were.”

“You know about vampires? How do you know about vampires?” Jane asks, a bit more surprised than Darcy thinks is warranted, considering who they’re talking to.

“Indeed. They are native to Midgard, so there are not many on my home world, but I have heard many harrowing tales of them, both good and ill.”

“Really?” Darcy asks, a little bit in awe. It hadn’t occurred to her to ask Thor if they had something similar to vampires on Asgard, and of course she respects the masquerade, knows that’s it’s necessary to keep Mark safe, so it just… never came up. Now, she’s kicking herself. Thor is the protector of the entire Earth; of course he knows about vampires.

“Yes, though the last time I saw Steven he was yet living. This is a recent change?”

“That’s what he said. They’re still figuring things out, and they need some help…”

“You mean, they need a source of sustenance.”

“Yeah. I’ve done it before, so I said I’d do it for them. No big deal,” she shrugs. Her nerves are coming through in her voice though, and Thor smiles gently and tightens his grip on her hands.

“I believe it is, Lady Darcy. You do them a great honor with your sacrifice. You save them from a predatory fate. They should be quite humbled and grateful for your kind heart.”

Jane just looks on, obviously uncomfortable, but Thor turns and scoops her into his arms, taking a long moment to rub his nose in her hair. “I believe Lady Darcy has a dinner date, and I would spend the evening with you, my love,” he coos at her, effectively ending the conversation.

A week ago she might have rolled her eyes at the way Jane melts into Thor. Now, she’s beginning to understand the way someone can get right under your skin in the best way possible and just… stay there.

“See you bright and early tomorrow, Jane.” Darcy smiles and settles in to finish up some lab notes and equipment invoices while her boss takes the rest of the afternoon off with her Godly boyfriend. Jane makes a noncommittal noise while Thor carries her out of the lab.

 

…

 

They had to special order a god damn straight razor.

The AI butler got it to them in only a few days, though, so he’s slightly less offended that people don’t shave properly anymore. Steve checks the duck confit in the oven before dragging a chair from the dining room into the living room and laying a sheet on the floor.

Bucky grumbles as he takes a seat, “it’d be easier to clean in the kitchen.”

“And get in Darcy’s food,” Steve mumbles, running fingers soothingly through his hair. Bucky sighs and leans into it. He literally can’t remember the last time they did this. Before the war, it was pretty much par for the course. A shave and a haircut was a little more than two bits and he wasn’t making enough at the docks to justify it. As with most of the domestic necessities, Steve was a quick study and didn’t mind any work that didn’t exhaust him.

“What’s on the menu tonight?” Bucky can smell the duck fat in the air, along with the parsnips and green onions Steve cut earlier. 

“She needs a bit more protein before tomorrow evening, so I’m making duck confit and steamed mussels.” Steve has been really pulling out the stops on the food. Must be his way of courting their little kitten.

Bucky leans into the sensation of the comb in his hair and lets his eyes flutter closed as Steve goes to work on cutting the last of the Winter Soldier out of him.

His own offering, a dozen petit fours, are already finished and waiting under the little glass dome that came in the night before. He knows Steve is going to drag his feet on confessing their shared feelings. As usual, he’s decided to take the lead and literally sweeten the little lady up. He’s good at playing that role with women. The forbidden fruit, as it were.

“I cut out the sugar for a reason, Buck.” Steve grouses as he finishes up the trim. Bucky just smirks, the bite all but gone from Steve’s complaint.

“Maybe I think she deserves somethin’ decadent? She still licks her plate clean for you.”

Behind him, Steve groans, whipping out the straight razor and twirling it around in his hands for a few beats. They haven't really talked about it, but neither of them can deny the strange swirl of fondness and desire they feel when Darcy eats what they prepare for her. Bucky’s getting ready to say something absolutely filthy, drop a little image into Steve’s brain about their girl and his hand dropping little morsels into her mouth, when the AI announces her at the door.

“Let her in.” Steve’s voice is thick, and Bucky tries his best to suppress the shudder that rolls down his back as he feels the gentle kiss of the blade against the short hairs on his neck.

Darcy comes in like a hurricane of curses and sweet spun sugar floss. He’s beginning to pick up a delectable burnt edge to her scent this week and he’s not sure if it’s just his brain scrambling up how very much he’s looking forward to her wrist or if something’s really changing.

He’s a little too pre-occupied to zero in on the greeting Steve tosses her or what she says in return. What gets his attention is the way she slows and her heartbeat stutters as if the entire world had just zeroed down to the point behind his head where Steve is finishing up his hair cut.

“You look… nice.” The compliment, a little breathy, doesn’t really do justice to what her eyes are telegraphing.

“Less like a psychopath?” Bucky gives her that smolder he used on the girls in the dance halls back before the war but it doesn’t seem to do much more than whatever it is she’s already watching so intently behind him. “I was gonna let Steve give me a shave too, but you’re a little early.”

That snaps her attention back to him. “Oh. I don’t… I mean, I’m not in a hurry. You can do that. If you want.”

“He might need to go check on his fancy French food. You know how to work a straight razor, kitten?”

She makes a little choking sound but recovers quickly. “No, not even a little. I think they’re pretty, though.”

Bucky grins at her. He likes the things it does to their girl’s cheeks. “Want to learn?”

Steve is busy behind him, dusting off the excess hair. He unties the oversized towel draped across his shoulders. Underneath Bucky wears dark jeans and a white t-shirt with a grey star across the chest. Steve is still in his sweats and shirt sleeves. He tends to lose all sense of anything but the ingredients and the steps to the food he’s preparing for Darcy. Bucky’s been making an effort to clean himself up before she comes over, but Steve is usually wearing whatever he worked out in earlier. They were going to need to have a chat about the proper attire for wooing their girl.

“I- Yes. Yes, I would like that.” Darcy walks across the room and Steve has that sweet little lopsided grin on his face. His hands twitch like he wants to do more than smile. They both do, but it’s not the time. Their little intimacies will just need to wait until she’s ready. Bucky can be patient. Theoretically, the have forever.

“Dinner will be ready in about fifteen minutes. Try not to-” Steve stops himself and screws up his face. Bucky can tell he was about to say something about drawing blood or slitting throats. A long, strange pause passes between them before Steve excuses himself and heads for the kitchen.

“So, how do I do this without going all Demon Barber on you?”

Bucky laughs. “Well, this ain’t Fleet Street, so we don’t have much to worry about.” He sits up, metal arm relaxed on his thigh and offers her the blade with his flesh and blood hand. While she stares at the razor, Bucky catches some of the hot foam Steve prepared earlier on a brush and dabs it across his face and neck. “Open it and grip it with your first three fingers on the back of the blade and your pinky on the tang.”

Darcy stares at him for a moment, blinking. She tries to settle the razor properly in her hand until Bucky huffs out a laugh and beckons her over. She stands between his open knees, so close he can smell her syrupy burnt aroma.

“Like this.” He knows he sounds a little hoarse, but there’s a curious little flush seeping onto the apples of her cheeks. He’s not sure why, but this is really getting to her.

“Okay.” She squeaks as he takes her hand and positions her fingers where they need to be for the best control of the blade.

He slouches into the chair and tips his head back. Darcy’s breath catches in her throat as her hands follow his lead; metal grip on her forearm, gentle fingers of his other hand guiding the razor to glide in one clean stroke from cheek to jaw. “Like this. Gently. Let the weight do most of the work.”

She’s breathing harder. Her thighs feel warm where they touch his knees, even through her jeans. It feels like he’s drowning in her scent and Christ, she probably couldn’t do much damage with the blade but the surrender of the act pulls at something in his core. Darcy picks it up like a pro after a few swipes. His cock begins to stir just watching her and he swallows thickly, his throat dipping down where the blade kisses skin.

The way her perfect red mouth pursed in concentration and those warm blue eyes follow the path of the razor... He feels, god, he doesn’t really know how to describe it. Adored, maybe. Or precious. He feels this with Steve, when Steve’s fucking him slow and draining him slower.

It’s over before he wants it to be over. Without direction, she takes the heated towel on the coffee table and swipes it over his face.

Darcy looks… blissed out, and extremely guilty. He wants to tell her there’s no reason to feel that way. That he and Steve want whatever it is she’s cooking up in that filthy little mind of hers. Before he can put thought to words she’s backing away and Steve is calling for dinner, and just like that their little moment snaps in half.

 

…

 

When Friday night, _the_ night, finally comes it takes Darcy the better part of an hour to decide on what to wear. Which is made even more ridiculous by the realization she’s going to be losing almost two pints of blood tonight, she should just be comfortable, damn it; she throws on a loose PJ set and is proud the pieces match. She had slipped away from the lab as early as she could to get her nightly routine over with before the boys arrived, but now she’s second-guessing everything she normally does. Hair up or down? Makeup or none? Should she wear a bra? As the sky gets darker and darker outside her window she gets more annoyed with herself. She goes to her bathroom one last time and looks herself in the eyes. ‘ _This is stupid,_ ’ she tells herself. _‘Stop thinking of them as men and start thinking of them as vampires. You’re going to get yourself hurt.’_

Darcy scrubs her face and drops the demi-cup she’d been wearing all day into the hamper in favor of a soft t-shirt bra it won’t hurt her shoulders to sleep in. The only concession she makes to her own silliness is leaving her hair down. She’s noticed the way Bucky looks at it, laid flowing over her shoulders. It can’t hurt to keep a little skin the game. As a final touch, she rolls up the sleeves of her button down top to her elbows for easy access.

When the knock on her door finally comes, she’s ready, though she doesn’t really feel it. She tells JARVIS to let the boys in anyway. To their credit, they don’t arrive empty handed. Steve has a tray of finger foods for Darcy that all look delicious, and Bucky’s holding a plate of what smell like fresh baked cookies in one hand and a simple little daisy bouquet in the other. They both look nervously optimistic and Darcy melts a little inside. Regardless of all the other bullshit, she really does want to do this for them.

“Go ahead and make yourselves comfortable, guys. I’m just gonna grab something to drink and then I’ll join you.” Darcy makes a quick trip to the fridge for a container of coconut water and comes back to find them sitting together on her couch. There’s a red knit blanket thrown over the back and they’ve laid their little offerings out on her coffee table. They’re sitting there with their knees touching, quietly holding hands, and it’s so reminiscent of her fantasy she has to physically stop and shake herself.

Steve’s brow furrows. “Darcy, are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she says, a little too quickly. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just thought I forgot something, but I’m good. Have you guys been, uh, practicing?” Boy, was that the wrong thing to say. Suddenly, they’re both very interested in her bare feet and fidgeting like little boys in the principal's office. That’s a yes. “It’s- I just meant… are you ready?”

They sober up quickly and give her serious little nods.

“And you remember the rules?”

“We keep count to estimate how much blood we’ve taken, but if you say ‘stop’ before that, we stop. We take a break in between so you can replenish, and we stay with you to keep you awake for at least half an hour after to make sure you’re recovering,” Bucky recites. He looks so eager to please, and he did get it all right, so she gives him a nice big smile. He beams back at her. This is not going to get easier. Why couldn’t they just be horrible and she wouldn’t feel bad leaving them to trawl clubs and pay for blood?

“Okay. So, uh, any discussion about who would go first?”

“We thought Bucky should, if that’s okay with you,” Steve replies.

Darcy almost wants to ask why but dismisses it. She can trust them with this decision. “Cool. How do you want to… where should I sit?”

Steve jumps up to offer her his seat like she’s a frail old lady on the subway with him. A shy smile creeps it’s way onto her face and she lowers her eyes subconsciously, looking at him through her lashes. Bucky looks a little dazed but scoots down farther, to make more room, and as she steps around the coffee table to sit on his right, Steve insinuating himself on her other side with just enough space between them to be polite.

She shifts a little, so she can partially face Bucky. “Oh, I should mention, I don’t know if you’ve noticed you can heal wounds-”

His brow furrows. “I thought that was the serum. I’m more resistant to cuts and scrapes anyway, and Steve feels pain differently but heals so fast it’s never mattered. I assumed it was just us.”

“Yeah, I’m sure that helps, but your saliva is a big part of it. All vampires can heal wounds faster that way. It won’t even scar. So, after the bite, to help it along, you have to, uh... “ Darcy clears her throat. ‘ _Say it. You’ve said it a million times before. Stop being an idiot.’_ “Lick it.” She can feel her own blush and can’t bring herself to look at him until it wanes. When she does, he’s looking straight over her shoulder at Steve, pupils huge, dark, and deep. There’s something a little bit frightened, maybe even pleading there, before he turns his attention back to her.

“Okay, doll. We’ll do whatever you need. Don’t worry about a thing.”

Darcy grabs the paper container and takes a long drink of her coconut water, letting it cool down her insides a bit. She’s got to get a handle on her responses or she’s going to embarrass all of them. Especially Steve, who seems embarrassed just to need this. When she feels a bit more centered, she sets her drink back on the table and looks to Bucky again. She turns her left hand over in her lap, exposing her wrist. An invitation for him to take it when he’s ready.

Bucky reaches forward with both hands, then hesitates, pulls his left arm back, and sits on his hand. “Sorry. I, umm. I don’t think I should touch you with it. I haven’t done this before and I don’t want to hurt you by accident.”

Darcy just nods, willing herself not to show anything he might interpret as fear or revulsion. It’s just a prosthetic. He’ll get more comfortable with it and so will she. She vaguely wishes they’d told her Bucky had never had live blood before. This could get intense, for both of them. Now she understands why he’s going first.

He scoops his hand down underneath hers, cradling the back of it in his palm and lining their forearms up. The pull up to his mouth is slow but deliberate, the hunger finally coming back into his eyes. They flutter closed as he pauses for an indulgent breath against her skin. She remembers him saying they like the way she smells. Vampires have such heightened senses she has no idea what she smells like to them, but Bucky obviously wants to savor the whole experience.

His lips are soft and dry as they brush over her skin and give way to the harder pressure of his incisors. He keeps his bottom lip tucked like a good boy and presses down gently like he’s feeling for resistance, giving her one last chance to get out. There’s a pinching sensation like there always is, and pain, but it’s the rush of euphoria that makes her gasp.

The only feeling Darcy’s ever been able to compare it to is a runner’s high. It feels like running five miles at the perfect pace, with the perfect heart rate to optimize adrenaline and endorphin flow. A full body awareness, every other sense muted, so that the whole world is thrumming inside her skin; except where it flows out around twin points of pressure. She lets herself watch, rapt, as Bucky’s throat bobs with the swallows she can feel pulling at her veins. A little trickle of blood escapes at the corner of his mouth and Darcy’s too engrossed to stop herself from moaning and swaying back, only to be caught by Steve’s hands.

Bucky’s either shocked out of his reverie or his time is up (Darcy couldn’t be bothered to count) because he pulls his fangs out and turns her arm in his grip, dragging his tongue heavily over her wounds as he pulls away. A pleasant warmth is flowing down her spine, made even better by Steve’s thumbs on either side of it, huge hands wrapped around her ribs to hold her upright. Her head feels a bit heavy, so she lets it tip back and pull her along with its weight until she hits something solid and snuggles down into it. Bucky lowers her arm back into her own lap but doesn’t let go of her hand.

“Darcy?” Steve’s voice is soft and tentative above her. “Are you okay, doll? You gotta stay conscious for us.”

“‘m okay. Relaxed. Don’t worry, Cap, feels good,” she replies, arching to see him, with a goofy grin.

Steve looks up at Bucky with a raised eyebrow and whatever he sees there makes him shudder slightly and lick his lips. Darcy’s too blissed out to care what it is. “You need a little rest now. Are you hungry? Do you want us to turn on the television or something?”

“Nooo, too much noise. I could eat, though. I want something… salty.”

Bucky mutters something she doesn’t catch, but sounds like Russian, and tightens his grip on her hand. “Sit up a little more doll. You’re gonna choke.”

Steve helps her up, mostly by just moving himself until she’s propped against him straighter. Bucky offers her the plate with the delicate looking finger foods Steve had obviously made, but she’s feeling good enough, and drunk enough, to shake her head at him. When he looks quizzically back, she just opens her mouth and says, “ahhh.”

He actually snorts, and it has Darcy laughing too, but he dutifully sets the plate back on the coffee table and picks up a morsel for her. She never in a million years thought that would work, but here they are: Bucky Barnes hand feeding her a cracker, slathered in brie, with a thin slice of prosciutto on top. She moans a little at the taste but manages to finish chewing before she breathes, “oh, bless you, Steve Rogers.” He doesn’t respond, but Bucky laughs some more, so she does too. It’s a little early in the proceedings for her to be losing it like this. She knows she should try to get a grip on herself, but gods, it’s been so long since she’s done this and she’d almost forgotten how good it can be. The best she can do is ride it out and hope they don’t do anything to make it worse. “Okay boys, more calories, and some entertainment. C’mon, Sergeant Barnes, tell me some embarrassing stories about Steve.”

Darcy drifts while he talks. It was definitely the right thing to do; Bucky obviously adores teasing Steve, and Steve obviously adores Bucky, so everyone’s happy. Bucky continues to feed her bits from the tray of food and, eventually, a few chunks of homemade chocolate chip cookie as he talks. The glide of Steve’s left thumb over her hip bone where his hand fell after she snuggled onto his shoulder is a comforting sensation. She can’t see his face but she can feel his chest shake when he laughs, his cool presence and still heart a nice balm to the overheated intensity in her own chest. Her head isn’t clearing, and this isn’t getting less romantic, but her body feels good so she figures it’s time to get it over with, even if she’d rather make it last. Darcy reaches her right hand up to curl around Steve’s neck, then drags her fingers up and around his jaw line until her wrist is level with his mouth.

Steve takes a sharp breath. “Darcy... I can wait-”

“I’m ready. Go ahead,” she tells him, though she’s still got her back on his shoulder and she’s looking right at Bucky.

Steve takes her hand and holds it back gently, so he has better access to the thin skin at the joint. He presses his lips to it in a gesture she thinks is more hesitation than affection, but she can’t be sure. Bucky isn’t giving her any clues, either; his expression is soft and neutral, and he never breaks eye contact with her. When Steve’s teeth finally do pierce her skin, it’s so different than she imagined it would be. The pain is expected and fades fast, but she hadn’t expected to feel him retract his fangs so quickly and pull back just a little. Instead of the sucking sensation she’s so familiar with, Darcy feels her blood leave her body in a thick pulse, in sync with her heartbeat, and her soft groan is drown out by Steve’s husky one. Her hips twist involuntarily, muscles clenching so tight they lift her ass off the cushion. Bucky’s hand is still twined with hers in her lap and he leans forward over their forearms, pressing her hips back down and trying to get her attention.

“Darcy? Darcy, open your eyes.”

She does, even though she can’t remember closing them, and immediately regrets it. Bucky’s eyes are right in front of her, wide and dark and looking right into her soul. Darcy has no idea how, but she’s suddenly sure he knows everything; all her fantasies, the dirty intrusive thoughts, the pining she’s been doing over Steve’s stupid food. She squirms under his gaze and realizes how wet she is, and that if she can smell the blood then he can definitely smell that.

Steve chooses that moment to release her wrist from his lips and lick and broad stripe all the way from his bite to the center of her palm and hold it there, cupped over his mouth. It’s too much, too intense, but she doesn’t have the willpower to pull away. All she can do is try to control her breathing and stare back at Bucky, her head swimming with the blood loss. She feels like she’s had about three glasses of good wine and when he says, “do you feel alright?” what she hears is, “did that feel good?”

“Bucky,” Darcy gasps. “So good. I forgot. I forgot how good-” She writhes a little, by accident, and breaks off on a whimper.

“Jesus, doll… Are you always like this? Is everyone?”

“Mmm, always. Everyone gets the euphoria, the body-high, but I- Christ, it’s so fucking sexy. I’m sorry. I’m sorry Steve, Bucky, I didn’t mean… I know that you can’t, not that you probably even want to-”

“What?” Steve interjects, sounding almost as blood-drunk as she is. Their intertwined hands fall down to her side and she realizes they’re both still holding her.

“You have each other, this is just feeding, I know that. I should have told you I’d react this way. You don’t… and even if you did, you can’t, ya know…”

“No,” Bucky says, “I don’t think we do.”

Darcy can feel herself flush, though where she finds the blood left she had no idea. “You can’t… get it up. It’s fine! I’ve never met a vampire who could! Even female vampires don’t really get aroused after the first few weeks. It’s not a big deal and obviously I would never try to- I don’t know why I feel this way, I just always have. I should have told you, but I didn’t think it would be so intense. You’re both just so hot… Fuck, why am I still talking?”

That startles a laugh from both of them. “You feelin’ a little drunk there, kitten?”

She nods. This is so embarrassing. “Just put me into bed and out of my misery.”

“I’m not sure we should leave you yet, Darce,” Steve says, lips moving against the crown of her head.

“It’s okay. I’m good sleepy, not embolism sleepy. JARVIS can monitor my heart rate and blood pressure, can’t you J?”

“I can, Ms. Lewis.”

“See? It’s all good. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, guys. You can go. I’m sorry.” That last bit comes out kinda slurred. She hopes they got it.

“It’s alright, doll. We’re gonna stay right here and make sure you’re okay. Just relax and let Stevie rock you to sleep.” His smirk is maddening, and she can tell by the stiffness in Steve’s shoulder he thinks so too. She can’t fight sleep much longer, though, so she just snuggles down a little more, and Steve softens up to accommodate her. Her last thoughts are that she hopes she hasn’t messed this up too badly, and a short plea to her blood-addled brain not to let her have a sex dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're seeing Civil War tomorrow. If you're also seeing Civil War this weekend, feel free to cry in the comments. We'll come and read them and all cry together. Love you guys!


	9. Shake my tomb

“That seals the deal, then,” Bucky whispers, leaning over to brush a lock of hair from Darcy’s face. She fell into a deep sleep almost immediately and Steve is obviously having a hard time not rutting against her.

“It doesn’t seal anything. She was delirious when she said-”

“She wants us. Both of us.” It’s a heady feeling, and one he’d forgotten for a long time. He hadn’t had any human contact without violence for years before seeing Steve again and starting to break through the walls of the maze in his brain. Then, all he could think about was Steve; his mission. Somewhere in the rat race he knew it was intimate, even base, but so much of those needs had been beaten out of the Asset he couldn’t make the feelings make sense, much less act on them. Now, he’s free to desire and be desired, and it feels like it’s been piling up for 70 years. Being with the objects of his affection like this and being given affection back… it’s almost overwhelming.  

“She’s not ours just because she’s attracted to us.”

“It’s a start. You remember how it started with Peggy?”

“Don’t do this right now, Bucky. Please? She’s sleeping.” Steve’s still got her cradled on his shoulder, right where he can lean in and rub his cheek against the crown of her head and kiss her hair.

“We’ve got a lot of time to kill before she wakes up. We gotta talk about something,” Bucy presses, unable to let it go. Not this time, and not after what they just saw.

Steve sighs. “Let’s just… hold her, for a while. We’ll put her in her room after we’re sure she’s out for the night and then we can talk. I don’t want her to wake up in the middle of us discussing how to get her in bed.”

Bucky frowns, disappointed he would jump to that conclusion. “Stevie, I don’t just mean-”

“I know,” he interrupts. “I know you don’t. I’m sorry. I just wasn’t expecting this. I suppose it makes sense after that night in the bar but, I guess I thought we’d have more time for a flirtation before it got so… intense. And why would she think we can’t…?”

“No idea. She seems to know a lot we don’t.”  

“We need to ask her. No more assumptions between the three of us.” Steve tightens his grip around her, angling his head so he can bury his face in the fall of her hair. Bucky’s not jealous exactly, but he had wanted her in his arms. He wants her to trust him enough to fall asleep against his chest and wrap her legs around his thighs. It’s not even sexual; he has plenty of fantasies that include her, but this is something else.

“You alright, baby?”

Steve huffs against her head and nods. “I’m afraid we’re going to scare her away. Maybe she feels we’re… safer, somehow, because she thinks we can’t. Do you think she’d be laying in my arms like a lamb if she knew what I- what we think about doing to her?”

“That’s assuming she’s not on board, Steve.”

“What if we tell her and then we lose her?” Steve’s voice frays towards the end. Bucky knows he’s the only person on the planet who gets to see this side of him. Six foot six of solid muscle and still a skinny, self-conscious kid inside. Sometimes he adores him for it, most of the time he just wants to knock that thick skull around.

“If we don’t ask we’ll never even have her. She said she thought we wouldn’t want to, even if we could. What does that sound like to you?”

“It sounds like she’s been thinking about it,” Steve murmurs, catching on.

“You suppose modern women spend much time thinking about what two men do together? Or do you think it’s just the blood? I’d bet a week’s pay in 1935 that it’s both.”

“Okay, so we tell her about the sex. We tell her about fantasizing about her. We get her to tell us more about her experience with all this. We convince her.”

“Yeah,” Bucky grins. “That’s it exactly, Stevie. We _convince_ her.”

  
  
....

 

Darcy wakes slowly from a dreamless sleep, warm and comfortable in her own bed. She shifts and stretches, enjoying the burn of it and the smell of her patchouli incense clinging to the sheets. Her thighs rub together and she notices the damp fabric between them. The throbbing from the night before has cooled to a sticky heaviness and Darcy’s almost grateful until she remembers everything she’d said. She freezes up, eyes squeezed shut, so mortified at her word vomit she doesn’t even breathe for a moment. Which is when she hears someone moving around in her kitchen.

No. They wouldn’t. Not after the way she acted last night. Would they?

The pajamas she wore the night before are still in place, though one of the boys rolled the sleeves down before they apparently tucked her in. Darcy pushes at them, just to check, and finds both of her wrists perfectly healed, supple and unmarked as if it had never happened. If only her brain had gotten that memo. She pulls herself out of bed and toward their low voices, which she can hear now that she’s approached the cracked door. They’re not quite arguing, but there’s some urgency in the tone she can’t name and they’re muttering enough she can’t make out any actual words. Awesome. She started a fight between America’s favorite sons.

Nothing left to do but face the music, and probably rejection, Darcy shuffles her way down the hall to her living room. She catches sight of them across the apartment, in the kitchen. They’re standing together at her sink, Bucky drying dishes and talking quietly while Steve tends a pan on the nearby stove. Looking around, she sees they cleared the table of everything they’d brought her last night, not to mention a few other things from her Netflix binge earlier in the week. Even her throw blankets are folded. “Did… did you guys clean?”

They both startle a little, but Bucky’s smile is bright and happy when he turns to see her. “There you are. Thought we might have to come in there after you soon. Sleep well, kitten?’

Darcy tries to ignore the flirtation but doesn’t really succeed. “Like a rock. I always do, after. You guys didn’t have to clean up in here. I could have done it.”

“Nah, we wanted to. Made you some breakfast, too. Why don’t you sit down? Me and Stevie need to talk to ya.”

And here it comes. At least they don’t seem angry. They probably won’t want to do it again, though. That would just be uncomfortable for everyone.

She doesn’t have a dining table, because why would you bother when you always eat alone, so she throws a pillow on the floor in front of her coffee table and sits with her back to the couch. They join her after a minute, Steve setting a plate of bacon, cheesy eggs, multigrain toast, and a bowl of melon in front of her. “Bruce told me glucose and protein are important after blood loss.” He’s looking down at his own hands, clenching and unclenching. He almost seems… shy.

Bucky offers her a glass of orange juice. “I know you said you don’t normally eat breakfast, but this one’s going to have a fit if you don’t let him feed you,” he says, jerking his head in Steve’s direction.

Not really sure what else to do, Darcy picks up the fork and starts in on the eggs with small, careful bites. Her eyes dart between them as they eye each other, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Apparently coming to a consensus in their weird eye conversation, Steve says, “so, we were talking, and we wanted to ask you a question.”

“Umm, okay. Shoot.”

“Well, uh, we were wondering- I mean, we don’t know why…”

Bucky sighs and interrupts, “why do you think we don’t have sex?”  

To say Darcy is shocked and confused would be an understatement. The understatement of the year. A year which included her best friend being basically possessed by pure evil. “Because you… can’t?”

“But how do you know that?” Bucky presses.

“Because vampires can’t. You still have blood in your body, but no heartbeat means no blood pressure, which means no erections. Besides, all the vampires of any gender I’ve asked about it say that after a month or so, they don’t even miss sex. Live blood or sharing blood with another vampire becomes so consuming for them, they don’t even think about it anymore.”

“Just how many vampires do you know, Darcy?” Steve asks, sounding most of the way to frustrated. “You never told us how you know any of this stuff. We’ve been trusting you, doll. Throw us a bone here.”

Yeah, okay, that’s fair. She sighs. “I’ve been in and out of vampire culture since I was 15. My brother is a vampire and a high-ranking assistant to the Prince of Seattle. I don’t mean to brag, but on the West Coast, I’m kind of a big deal.” She laughs a little; they don’t.

“You’ve been doing this since you were 15?” It’s not quite a growl, but there’s a protective, unhappy edge to Steve’s voice that makes her jump to correct him.

“No! No, no, not like this. My brother and I were orphaned when I was 10 and he was 15. About three years later, he got very sick; aggressive brain cancer, nothing anyone could do. Mark is special, though, some kind of computer and internet programming prodigy, and he caught the interest of the vampire clan in power near us. The Prince of the city came to our apartment himself and offered to embrace Mark and bring him under his protection. It took us a few months to decide to do it. We figured, even if they guy was lying, Mark was going to die anyway. He wanted to go for it, so I took him to Gideon’s house and dropped him off. Two nights later he was back, looking healthier than I’d seen him in years. I was so grateful, I would have given my blood if anyone had asked, but there’s a ban on children so I was safe to just follow Mark around. No one even questioned it actually, which is unheard of. I think it was only allowed because they assumed I’d accept the embrace as soon as possible.”

“You mean become a vampire, too.”

“Yeah. That’s what they call it: being ‘embraced’.”

“Why didn’t you?”

Darcy squirms a little under their scrutiny. This is really personal. She hasn’t really explained this to anyone, even Mark. Although, that’s mostly for other, equally uncomfortable reasons. Still, they’re trusting her. They’re not asking out of judgment like most vampires she’s met, they want to know this because it’s about her. “By the time I was old enough to be considered part of the clan I was in love. I’d met someone I wanted to be with, we had a physical relationship and I didn’t want to give that up. Even though it didn’t work out, and I decided to go away to school, I knew I wouldn’t want the embrace because I’d lose sex. I didn’t even know about how the bite and seeing blood would affect me then; that came later, while I was in college and gods was that an embarrassing night. But I knew by then that vampires couldn’t have sex, and that if I wanted that intimacy to be part of my life I couldn’t be one. So I focused on school and helping vampires instead. I’m happy with my choices. I think the biggest tragedy of this whole situation is that you two didn’t get to make choices.”  

The boys share another strange, silent conversation and Darcy can’t take it anymore. “Guys, if this is about last night and the way I reacted I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to spring that on you and obviously I don’t expect anything of you. You can just leave me alone with my B.O.B. next time and we never have to speak of it again. Or, if you’re uncomfortable, I’m sure I can help you find someone more suitable.”

“B.O.B.? Is that another vampire thing?”

Darcy shuts her eyes, hoping if she ignores her embarrassment it’ll just go away. “I need to stop forgetting who I’m talking to. ‘ _Battery Operated Boyfriend_ ’. It’s, umm, for-”

“We know what a vibrator is, kitten,” Bucky laughs, picking up the subtext quicker than she thought he would. “They had those where we come from. Just never heard it called that before.”

“Yeah, I suppose it’s kind of a modern joke. People weren’t really talking about pleasure for the sake of pleasure, especially for women, back in your day. Lots of modern women don’t consider men as a source for sexual pleasure at all.”

“Is that how you feel?”

Did Steve Rogers really just ask her that question? Because it sounded like Steve Rogers just asked her that question. “No. I like sex with men. I like the connection, the intimacy, and the trust it requires. I like the way it feels. I like everything about sex with another person. It’s just not always on the table and a girl has needs.”

“What if it was? On the table. What if we wanted… what you want.”

“I- I don’t understand.” Darcy looks back and forth between them again, but they’re both regarding her steadily, open and eager expressions on their faces. “Don’t get me wrong, I know that penetration isn’t the only definition of sex, or the end all and be all of sex acts by a long shot, but, I mean… what’s in it for you? Besides my blood, because we are not trading sexual favors for your food source. That’s just wrong. I can’t hold that over you guys, I could never-”

“Darcy, shut up,” Bucky interjects, and she can’t help but snap her mouth closed and give him her full attention. “I know we don’t know much about other vampires, but I think it’s clear by now that we’re different. Hell, we’re sitting here in sunlight. Is that something other vampires do?”

Darcy had been so wrapped up in their conversation, she hadn’t even noticed the sun streaming through her blinds, lighting the room. She’s had Tony’s special filter installed, just like everyone else, but she’s still surprised she forgot. She shakes her head, a careful ‘no’.

“We have sex, kitten. Regularly. The blood turns us on, too. We can barely keep our hands to ourselves whenever we taste it. Thanks for the tip about biting each other, by the way. Best thing I’d ever felt, until I got my teeth in you.”

She stares back, dumbfounded. This cannot be happening. It has to be a dream, and there’s only one way to find out. “Bullshit.”

Bucky’s eyebrows go up to his hairline. “Bullshit? How’s this for bullshit: I have elaborate fantasies about Steve taking you out to Brooklyn and setting you running in a random neighborhood so I can chase you. I want to track you by that ridiculous cotton candy scent all across the borough, and take you then and there, wherever I find you. I think you want that, too. You want my mouth, and my cock, and you want Stevie to watch. I want that, too, but I also already know how it feels. Then, when we’re done playing, we can come back home and curl up together, the three of us. I’ll wear you out so good you’ll be nice and hungry in the morning; Steve can cook for you and I can watch him eat you out while you enjoy your breakfast.”

There’s a long moment of silence while they stare assessingly at each other. It’s eventually broken by Steve, reminding her to breathe. Darcy swings her gaze over to him and finds him blushing. Yesterday she would have sworn vampires can’t blush, but there sits Steve, a dusky flush spread over his cheeks, neck, and, she’s willing to bet, all the way down onto his chest. He doesn’t seem embarrassed though, not any more than he usually is when they talk frankly about these things. He seems excited, interested in something vampire related in a way that he hasn’t been before. Steve seems _hungry_. “We can prove it.”

Darcy can only nod.

  
...

 

Bucky and Steve settle on the coffee table in front of her while she retreats to the couch. He can feel the solid pressure of Bucky’s thigh against his own.

“What do you want to see?” Bucky asks, his right thumb rubbing slow circles on the inside of Steve’s thigh. The tips of his ears have gone pink and he’s leaning back, arms braced behind him on the coffee table. Darcy watches, rapt, as his knees fall open. She appears to be at a total loss for words. Steve wishes they’d planned a little farther along than ‘let’s show her’.  Bucky doesn’t seem deterred. His lover has his tells, and Steve knows by the way he’s licking his lips and considering the planes of Steve’s body that he has an idea.

“Don’t think I missed that blush, kitten. The night at the club?” Bucky punctuates his question with a slow, wet kiss against Steve’s neck, and thank Christ he’s sitting down because they haven't even taken their clothes off and he can smell Darcy’s arousal. It's just like last night, only she’s not drunk from blood loss. It’s them she wants, he and Bucky making her pulse pound and her lips dry. He’s never been one to put on a show, or make a fuss, but God this is going straight to his dick. Steve makes himself pliant as a baby and lets Bucky undress him. He’s naked as the day he was born in seconds and so hard it aches. Darcy scoots to the edge of the couch, so close he can feel the uptick in her body temperature. Being the only bare one in the room is incredibly thrilling and he can’t really place why.

“What do you think about, when you think of us together?” The question’s for Darcy, but he says it right up against Steve’s collarbone as he’s kissing it. Thank God for Bucky’s filthy mouth.

Darcy tears her eyes away from his weeping cock and settles Bucky with a guilty look. She worries her bottom lip and studies her bare toes while she answers. “There’s blood.”

“You like it when we bleed, or when you’re bleedin’?” That confident grin is all bluster. Steve doesn’t miss the way Bucky’s voice turns rough. Darcy’s eyes go a little wider as she thinks it over and Bucky recovers his real swagger. “Let’s keep it simple. I’ll make Steve come, and settle the issue of our sexual appetites. That alright with you, kitten?”

“Yes.” Her pupils are blown and her cheeks are ruddy. She already looks like she’s gone a few rounds and Steve’s cock twitches as Bucky takes him in his flesh and blood hand. He strokes him dry three times and it stings in the best way until Bucky pauses.

“Mm, needs something a little slick,” he mutters, bringing his wrist to Steve’s mouth.

Steve’s surprised for a beat until he gets with the program and bites down gingerly against Bucky’s cool skin. He doesn’t swallow, just presses deep enough to make the blood flow and allows the thick red-black liquid to drip in fat tracks down Bucky’s forearm. Steve glances at Darcy and he sees that she’s moved a few inches to the right, so she can get a better look. Before he can center himself, Bucky wraps his bloodied hand around Steve’s cock and fists him hard. He grunts and shuts his eyes, focusing on the slick path the cool fingers make over his cock. Darcy’s arousal is thick as smoke in the room and that alone might cut this little show short.

“She isn’t touching herself yet, Stevie. I think we can do better. Open your legs, come on.” Steve whimpers, head back, throat bare as he settles his hips wide and tilts his ass off the coffee table. He’s not actually prepared for the cold, wet intrusion of Bucky’s tongue against his hole but Darcy whimpers next to him so he can’t bring himself to care. He settles his leg over Bucky’s right shoulder, and Bucky adds a finger slicked by his mouth. It’s too much too soon and Steve can’t believe they are doing this in front of Darcy, but she’s settled next to them, kneeling, with one hand on Steve’s thigh and the other in Bucky’s hair and he could come from that alone.

“Darcy, you don’t have to doll. This is just for you,” Bucky murmurs to her. She doesn’t move, her grip actually tightening on Steve and making him pant as Bucky works two fingers inside of him, effectively attacking his prostate.

“For me.” Darcy mutters, swiping at the blood pooling in Steve’s hip crease. She seems enamored with the way it coats her fingers. Steve feels his entire body clench, his climax coming hard and fast as Darcy runs those sweet little fingers up the pumping arm that’s still working his cock. That image: soft and gentle, hard and punishing… it does him in. He comes with a shout and empties himself in long, thick ropes across his stomach and Bucky’s fist.

Bucky’s eyes are blown, his fangs sharp against his bottom lip. Steve knows he has to be aching now, and Darcy just makes it worse. She reaches out and makes tracks all over Steve’s stomach with those pale, nimble little fingers as if she needed to feel his release to believe it. “Holy shit, you can-”

“And we want to, with you,” Bucky whispers into her hair, sighing.

Slowly, he removes his fingers and Steve lets the tension drain from his body. His head thumps against the probably ruined coffee table and he almost misses Darcy’s request.

“So, umm… can we kiss?”

That gets the very much proverbial blood flowing back to Steve’s brain. He sits up, and Bucky rears. He’s certain that if he hadn’t placed his hand on the Bucky’s chest Darcy would be pinned to the couch. “Is that all you want? It’s all right if it is.”

Darcy looks uncertain for a moment, and then nods.

“Ok, I’m going to clean up and dress-”

Darcy stops him, a little out of breath. “No! I mean, I don’t mind if it’s a little sticky.”

It takes Steve far, far too long to process that. “Okay. Sure, doll.” He pulls on his shorts and sits on the couch next to Darcy. Bucky follows suit and they both lean, crowding her space. Darcy squirms and sits back, motioning them towards her with a hand on one shoulder each.

Bucky gets to her first. The kiss looks hard, impassioned, almost brutal but Darcy makes a soft, pleased sound against Bucky’s unforgiving mouth. When he pulls away his lips are moist and red, a track of blood running down Darcy’s chin. Steve leans in, reverently licking up the red track until he finds her mouth and kisses the rest of it away.

“Will you go out with us?” he asks, breathless.

Darcy looks like she’s had the sense fucked out of her but the question knocks it right back in. “Like, a date, or in general?”

Bucky answers for the both of them, “Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from You've Seen the Butcher, by Deftones.


	10. No sweeter innocence (than our gentle sin)

Bucky smells her before he can hear her. The scent of orange flower water and her own earthier, feminine smell underneath drift to him on the air currents before she’s even in the room. He and Steve are both up early, full of nervous energy over their date with Darcy. Steve’s channeling it into yet another elaborate meal for her while Bucky felt his nerves would be better served by ripping something apart with the metal hand. Some irrational part of him thinks he’s got to appease it; if he just gives it a few punching bags and this aging jiu-jitsu dummy, maybe he can finally trust it to touch Darcy.

That’s where she finds him, sneaking into the gym while his back’s turned, quiet as a mouse. Bucky’s not sure what she’s playing at but he can tell she doesn’t know he’s clocked her yet, so he lets her keep coming. When she’s so close he feels like he can actually sense her presence behind him he turns, leading with his right arm, just to see if he can get a strike in.

He can’t. Natalia blocks and dodges gracefully as ever. She’s faster and more perfectly balanced than him but she could never be stronger, and it’s only a few seconds of artful contortion, and one good kick that would have knocked the breath out of him if he had any, before he’s got her pinned on the mat, the metal hand curled loosely but immovably around her neck. Her eyes are wide and searching as she looks up at him, but she’s not afraid. The tight grip of both her hands on his unyielding wrist is almost comforting.

“Remember me,” she says, and it’s not a question.

“I remember everything.”

Bucky stands, offering her his left hand to pull herself up.

“What are you doing in here besides property destruction?”

“I wanted to clear my head.”

“Did you?”

He hesitates for a second, still unsure of her motives and, frankly, not really happy with his answer. “Yes. It felt good to tear something apart, for all the good it did me with my actual problem.”

“Tell me about it.”

Bucky cocks his head and raises a skeptical eyebrow at her. She sighs.

“You’ve been through too much to be stoic and detached the rest of your life. Our past is what it is, брат, but we don’t do those things anymore. Now, we have to be something else. I thought we might give this a try,” she smirks, gesturing between the two of them.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve had a friend, малютка. I don’t know if I remember how.”

“You’ll figure it out. I have faith in you.”

He can tell she doesn’t mean his capacity for friendship. “What if I’m wrong? I have nightmares about being him again; I’m just a tiny, screaming part at the back of a cold brain, unable to stop anything that’s happening. Sometimes, the arm moves in my sleep. You know how many sheets I’ve wrenched holes in? I can’t bring myself to touch her with it, and I’m afraid it’s not safe for her to be around me.”

He doesn’t insult Natalia by explaining who he means as if she wouldn’t already know.

“You weren’t scared for Steve.”

“That was different. At first, I thought one of you would eventually just come to kill me. When Steve showed up that night I… It was a goodbye, I had nothing to lose by doing it. Anyway, Steve can handle me; I barely bruise him at our roughest and I don’t think I could break a bone even if I wanted to. This morning, at her place, I got so wrapped up in things he had to hold me back from pouncing on her like an animal. In my mind, I don’t think I would have done anything she didn’t want, but I could have hurt her. I couldn’t live with myself if I did that.”

“It’s a prosthetic, James, not-”

“It’s a _weapon_.”

“No, it’s not. It’s yours; it’s part of you and _you are not a weapon_. You own this body now, don’t let fear take that away from you.” She doesn’t raise her voice, but it takes on a hard edge that surprises him a little, and he thinks they may not just be talking about the arm anymore. “I know what it’s like not to trust yourself with precious things, but the trust is the first step. Without it, you’ll never get anywhere.”

Bucky huffs a humorless little laugh. “Is this what friends do? Talk about shell-shock and fear of intimacy?”

“No. That’s what soldiers do. This is what friends do,” she says, closing the space between them slowly, telegraphing her intent. He’s disgusted by how much he appreciates it. Then, she hugs him and Bucky wraps his arms around her shoulders without hesitation.

“Спасибо, Natalia.”

“Any time. If you want some more practical advice, I think you should get a hobby. Something that’ll let you do delicate work with the hand. I bet if you use it more, it’ll start feeling more controllable. Also, go introduce yourself to Sam and ask him about his work. We’ve come a long way since ‘shell-shock’, Sergeant. You don’t have to just accept those feelings.”

“I will,” he sighs, ruffling her hair where he’d bent down to kiss it.

“Good.” Natalia steps back and gives him that strange, barely-there smile that’s always charmed marks and infuriated him. “You’ll like him. He’s a pain in my ass, too,” she tosses over her shoulder on her way out.

 

....

  


“I’m thinking dinner tonight? Unless you’re only eating red meat these days.”

Bruce pulls his gaze away from the screen he’s been staring at for the better part of an hour. Blinking owlishly, he frowns in Tony’s general direction. There’s usually something to frown at around Tony. He’s wearing that ash colored three piece suit he likes while Bruce isn’t sure he’s changed his own shirt in the last thirty-eight hours. That’s mildly embarrassing, but the fact he’s bothered to notice things like Tony’s favored outfits is something else entirely. Maybe a year ago he would have squashed these impulses down. Not now, though. After you’ve witnessed lovers reunite beyond time and death, it’s difficult to put the kibosh on your own feelings.

Knowing Tony, he’s going to dance around this thing until one of them confesses during some stupid battlefield skirmish when it’s already too late. That would be suitable dramatic while also allowing him to avoid dealing with anything real as long as possible.

Lucky for Tony, Bruce is tired of both of them being idiots.

Tony insists on the restaurant. It’s a little hole in the wall that’s taking too many pains to feel kitschy. He flatters himself and entertains the fantasy that this might be some kind of strange Stark courting ritual. His suspicions can’t really be helped; Tony seems like he’s been trying to bring something up all evening but keeps falling short of saying it outright.

“A few glasses of wine won’t kill you,” Tony muses, halfway through his third. Bruce laughs, “I’m a bit more worried about the property of the residents of lower Manhattan. A couple glasses of wine might be bad for their health.”

“Loose doesn’t have to mean out of control, you know.”

What are they doing here? Two grown men, regularly risking their lives and sanity for the world and they can’t meet one another’s eyes for more than a few moments. It’s pleasant evening, though. Bruce is mildly stunned to admit that to himself. Tony pressed his buttons so often they’ve stopped being buttons at all. The most aggravating man in the Tri-state area just might be a soothing influence.

They enjoy walking a few blocks in companionable silence after dinner until Tony finally forces out what he’s been stewing over all evening.

“So, the Undead Duo have been courting our young Ms. Lewis.”

Ah. That thing Bruce was hoping he’d say was not the thing he was trying to say.

“Is that what you call making lunch for someone? Well, I suppose dating has changed a lot since the 40’s…” Bruce muses, but Tony deflects.

“It’s a little weird, right? Am I the only one who sees this?” He isn’t. Clint had come to Bruce a week ago and asked, point blank, if the vampires were a threat to Darcy. Bruce is still confident about his answer. He was wrong before, but the bagged blood seems to be helping and having a big incentive to exercise self-control can’t hurt. He’s still second guessing himself, but he isn’t the girl's father and he has no right to paint either super soldier as blood crazed killers. They deserve more than that.

It’s how he would want the others to think of him.

“You do agree, right? I mean, they called you in after the incident with Barnes.”

“Neither of us know what really happened in that room, Tony. I don’t think Darcy is in any danger. Why are you stuck on this?”

Tony performs the serious of nonchalant gestures Bruce has come to recognize as meaning ‘I care, but I am going to try to convince you with my body language that I don’t.’ “She’s twenty-five years old.” His voice is pitched so low Bruce has to lean in close to hear it.

“Yes. She is a consenting adult; the age of majority, if you will.” Tony, for all of his emotional gymnastics, is generally easier to read than this. “It’s not their actions, but their nature, right? That’s why you distrust them.”

“Blood, Bruce!” Tony’s voice rises an octave and then settles back into a whisper. He gets close too, his aftershave familiar by this point. Even a little comforting. “It’s written in their DNA, so far as we can tell. I just-”

“They’re monsters. Say it, Tony, if that’s what you mean.” This isn’t the best venue for this kind of conversation. Foot traffic weaving around them, the crest of commuters breaking around Bruce as he stops and turns a cold, sharp look on Tony.

The Other Guy isn’t ever really gone. That’s what none of them seem to understand. Right now he can feel him swimming under his skin. He’s nowhere near an involuntary change, but he can feel the green guy sit up and pay attention.

“You don’t ever think about what they could do? The good between them? Their potential?”

Tony’s been doing his own study of the two vampires. JARVIS feeds their recorded workouts into Tony’s lab computers and he compares Steve’s performance to before the change. He’s better; strong, faster, tireless. They don’t have a baseline for Barnes, but he’s not far behind Steve.

“I’m not comfortable with those two, just yet. OK? Doesn’t mean I’m going to, I don’t know, stake them to a wall or something.” Tony looks anywhere but at Bruce as they keep walking. He has the distinct feeling, a familiar feeling by this point, that they’re tip-toeing around each other.

“Don’t tell me you're afraid of monsters in your bed, Tony.” He thinks for a moment that Tony’s sunglasses are going to fall off his face, he whips his head towards Bruce so fast.

“You mean under my bed?”

Bruce smiles and removes his glasses, cleaning them on his shirt tail. “Sure.”

 

…

 

They end up just inviting Darcy to their place. It bothers them both a bit to not take her out, show the girl a good time like they used to do, but it’s what makes the most sense. Steve couldn’t stomach the idea of going back to a place like that vampire bar, and how do you handle a romantic date at a restaurant between three people, only one of which will be eating? It would draw too much attention, even if they weren’t somehow recognized, which he isn’t willing to risk. This is New York, after all.

Still, he’s quite relieved to hear Darcy’s noise of excitement when he sits a plate of linguini and clam sauce in front of her.

“Steve Rogers, I am holding you personally responsible for the expansion of my ass and thighs,” she grouses, but doesn’t stop eating or making pleased little sounds while she does it.

Bucky throws his head back and laughs, a strange, unmusical sound coming from the guitar he’s attempting to strum in his lap. “We’re from the pin-up generation, sweetheart. You don’t need to worry about those legs.”

“Oh yeah? I suppose I should just let _you_ worry about my legs, huh?”

God, it’s fun to watch them flirt. Steve’s sketching them from his place across the table; Bucky in the chair to her left, all loose limbs and messy hair, the sleeves rolled up on the button down Steve managed to nag him into; Darcy still in her work clothes, however casual they may be, twirling linguini delicately around her fork and then putting the clams on after with her spoon, grinning from ear to ear and her feet up on Buck’s thigh. She’s always been sweet and outspoken, but seeing her now it’s obvious she was holding something back from them. With things out in the open, she’s more playful, teasing and giving them coy little looks over the top of her glasses. He hadn’t known he was missing it until just now, and he’s so happy he gets to have it he can’t tear his eyes away.

“Oh yeah, doll, those legs are definitely my business, and I say you need ice cream when you’re done with that pasta, too.”

“Give a girl a minute to digest, will you? Do you guys like movies?”

“Sure. We didn’t get to go much, and only to the cheapest theater in Brooklyn,” Bucky shrugs. They both have a lot of fond memories of that place. When Steve found out it had been torn down in the 60’s he’d wished he could have seen it one last time. “I don’t think we ever actually saw anything made after 1930.”

“Well, then you’re living in the right place. Tony has a massive collection, and I have his Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon passwords to fill in the gaps. What do you feel like catching up on?”

“Whatever you like. Pick something fun.”

“Hmm… I’m in a bit of a vintage mood,” she says, with a flirty look at Bucky. “How do you feel about Audrey Hepburn?’

Steve frowns. “Is that any relation to Katharine Hepburn?”

“Funny enough, no. Not related at all. She’s great too, but I love Audrey. She was the original hipster. She had a pet deer, and she used to walk it around her neighborhood on a leash. I think every orphan fantasizes about a movie star swooping in and taking them away from all that. For me, it was her; which is ridiculous because she was actually dead by then, but broken-hearted preteens don’t really run on logic.”

He reaches out and grabs her hand gently, offering her a reassuring smile. The memories must be hard for her, but she doesn’t show it much. She’s still got her brother, it’s obvious they’re close, and he’s relieved she’s showing more of herself, letting them in little by little. Still, everyone misses their mom. “I’m sure she would have loved you. I’m trying to imagine you at 10 years old, but I can’t quite picture it”

“Oh, don’t. It was horrible. Pigtail braids, boy’s clothes, and Harlequin frames.” Darcy demonstrates by holding her hands up to her face with her fingers fanned out around her eyes. “I was a set of braces away from an 80’s movie.”

They all laugh, but it doesn’t feel like they’re teasing her, it feels like they’re sharing something.

“Go set it up, baby. I’ll take care of these dishes and get you that ice cream,” Bucky says, lifting her feet off his leg and placing them on the floor. He props the guitar on his chair carefully and then carries Darcy’s plate into the kitchen. She grins up at him as he goes and Steve briefly thinks it should be strange to hear Bucky call someone else such a personal endearment. It doesn’t, though.

Darcy gets up and pulls Steve into the living room with her. He lets her arrange him on the couch so she can use him as a backrest, then sits down on his right side. When Bucky comes back, a mug full of strawberry ice cream in his hands, it’s pretty obvious what she was doing. If Bucky wants to sit next to her, he has to sit on her right side, with the metal arm between them. Steve tenses a little, not because he doesn’t trust Bucky, but because he knows Bucky doesn’t trust himself. He tried to play it close to the vest this afternoon before he went off to the gym, but Steve knows him too well. He’s noticed the way Bucky favors it, doesn’t like to touch even Steve with it in any intimate way. He watches Bucky assess, contemplate, and make a decision in just a few seconds, handing the ice cream to Darcy and sitting flush up against her side, the arm thrown over the back of the couch to rest on his shoulder. The cool metal fingers run through the short hairs at the back of Steve’s neck, rubbing against the grain to feel the texture, and he knows everything’s okay.

 

…

 

They make it about halfway through ‘Charade’ before Bucky’s kissing his way from behind her ear down her neck. She tried to fight it at first, focusing on one of her favorite movies, but Cary Grant has nothing on Bucky Barnes. Her head lands on Steve’s shoulder, giving Bucky more room and having the additional bonus of Steve laying his head down on her’s and snuggling closer. Bucky hits a particularly sensitive spot and she squirms, trying to hold in a very unsexy giggling fit.

Steve, ever astute, says, “Bucky…” in his best warning tone, without lifting his head.

“Relax Stevie, I’m just angling for another kiss. Isn’t that half the fun of movies? You’re supposed to make out during them.”

“Seconded”, Darcy breaths.

“Well then, what are we waiting for?” Bucky slips his arm in between her and the couch, then wraps the other one around to her opposite thigh and manhandles her smoothly into straddling his lap. Darcy yelps in surprise but laughs as she settles and gets a look at the proud grin on his face.

“Shouldn’t we…” Steve starts, then sighs. “I know times have changed, but isn’t the modern social convention _three_ dates?”

“Did Natalia tell you that?” Bucky chuckles.

“She told me a lot of things. I could never be sure what was part of a prank and what wasn’t. This, I learned from television.” He takes a second to scoot over until he’s side-by-side with Buck and can place one big hand on the small of Darcy’s back. “I’m just trying to feel out the situation. The last time we did this was a lot different. We need to know where your head is, Darcy.”

She reaches up to touch his face and rewards him with a chaste little kiss when he nuzzles into the touch. “It’s okay, Steve. I mean, when you consider the things we’ve already done… You think of the blood sharing as intimate, don’t you?”

His expression turns serious, but his pupils blow out to cover most of those baby blues. He nods.

“Is it fair to say you consider yourself responsible for my safety and comfort during it?”

“Yes, Darcy, of course I do. _We_ do.”

“You enjoy the inherent vulnerability,” she murmurs to him, leaning in to touch their foreheads together and let their noses brush. “You get off on the trust, the harmony of it, just as much as the sensations.” That’s a stretch, but she has a hunch.

Steve’s eyelids flutter closed “Darcy,” he whispers, right into her mouth. Bingo.

The kiss they share then is all passion and no finesse. She comes away from his mouth panting, with his saliva and someone’s blood on her lips. Her tongue doesn’t feel cut, so that must be his, too. Darcy feels Bucky’s thighs and hips flex under her, rocking her around minutely, like the world’s gentlest mechanical bull.

She licks her lips and Steve seems to finally actually taste the blood, rather than feel it. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean- is it ok? For you to be exposed to our blood like that?”

“It’s fine. Normally, I wouldn’t ingest your blood unless you were going to embrace me, and it doesn’t do anything for me other than hit my kinks, but it’s not dangerous. We should talk a little, though, if we’re going to share yet more fluids. It’s a formality, really. You couldn’t catch anything from me, even if I wasn’t clean, and anything you may have had while you were alive has long since been starved out, but just for peace of mind… We’re not doing this with anyone else, right? Especially the sex part?”

“No,” Bucky replies, low and serious. “No one else. Just the three of us.”

“What about, uh, I mean, we wouldn’t want to get you into trouble…”

It takes Darcy almost a minute of looking down into their earnest faces before she gets what Steve’s trying to say. “Oh, you mean pregnant! Well, seeing as how I’ve never known any other vampires that still ejaculate, I have no frame of reference for that. What I do have is an IUD, so, we’re good on that front anyway.” Bucky’s kneading his fingers into the rise of her hips, but Steve still looks dubious. “We don’t have to, Steve. I was just trying to reassure you. If you’re not ready-”

“Don’t let him fool you, doll,” Bucky interjects. “It ain’t about bein’ ready. Sometimes, Stevie has a hard time reaching out and grabbing things that seem too good to be true. You should have seen the look on his face the first time I kissed him, or when I told him it was okay to make time with Agent Carter. Jesus, when Peggy invited us both back to her place I thought he was gonna faint.”

Steve leans over and hides his face behind Bucky’s shoulder. “God, _shut up_ , jerk.”

“The point is, we’re gonna have to do a little bit of work here to let him know all this is real. You’re not gonna change your mind on us, are you?”

Darcy shakes her head. “We’ll have to do a lot more talking and working out of boundaries and expectations, just like any other relationship, but I like you both, I like the idea of a relationship like this. I like the way I’m feeling right now, and I’m willing to put in the work to keep it. What about you guys?”

“Are you kidding? We’ve been looking a long time for you.” Bucky pulls her in by the back of her neck for a slow, deep kiss. By the time he’s done with her she’s a little weak, but when he leans over and kisses Steve the same way she feels like her bones may have liquefied. It’s the first time she’s seen them really kiss since the night at Mother’s Milk. There have been a few pecks here and there, but she got the impression they keep this sort of thing private, or at least they were trying to respect some unspoken boundary between what they were doing with her and the rest of their relationship. Now that the boundary is gone, they’re really putting on a show. Maybe the lust is making her pliant, or maybe it’s the aforementioned liquefied bones, but when Bucky tugs her down and guides her by the hand on her neck to Steve’s mouth, she goes easily.

“Christ, that’s pretty. I hope you like Steve, kitten, because I’m gonna want to watch you mess him up all the time.”

“I like Steve,” Darcy says, between soft kisses. “I like Steve a lot.”

“You like that mouth? It’s perfect, isn’t it? Pouty and soft.” Bucky runs his cool fingers in little circles behind her ear. “I want to watch him use it on you. He wants to taste you.”

“Yes,” she sighs, leaning back, away from the kiss, to offer Steve her wrist.

Bucky chuckles. It’s soft and dark, more a rumble than a laugh. “Oh, sweetheart, not like that.”

As quickly and smoothly as he’d manhandled her onto his lap he sweeps her up and turns her around, back to his chest. She looks over to Steve again but he’s already moving, sliding to the floor in front of her and Bucky, hands on her knees.

“Is this okay, doll?”

Darcy just nods, sliding lower on Bucky’s lap as Steve tugs at the waistband of her leggings. He slips them off with her boots and starts on the buttons down the front of her tunic. Bucky grips her legs under the thighs and places her knees on the outside of his, then helpfully spreads both their legs to make more room for Steve, who crowds in close.

“I’ve been thinking about this for days,” Bucky murmurs to her. “You’re gonna love this, and so is he.” His hands come up to cup her through her bra, one soft and almost warm from all the contact, the other still cool enough to make her shiver. He starts to pull it away and she realizes it’s the first time he’s really touched her with the prosthetic and he probably thinks he’s hurt her. Darcy lifts both hands up and covers his on her chest, lacing their fingers together and trying to show him how she likes the girls to be touched. She’s rewarded with a nice low groan and his tongue on her earlobe.

Steve’s fingertips are playing with the lace trim of her panties, obviously wanting to get them off but unable to bring himself to interrupt what Bucky’s doing to her.

“You can rip those. Well, of course you _can_ , but you’re totally welcome to as well.”

He makes an almost pained noise as he slides two of his fingers under the fabric around her thigh and pulls until the seams give. Behind her, Bucky laughs that dark, rumbly laugh again.

“You are something else, Darce. You comfortable?”

Darcy wiggles until she’s got herself farther over to his left side. She keeps her grip on the metal hand but runs the other up his neck and fists it at the back of his head. Just to see if he’ll let her, she shakes his head a little bit with her grip on his hair. He goes with it like a rag doll. She stretches up and pulls him down at the same time for a rough kiss. “Now I’m comfortable.”

Bucky opens his mouth to retort but apparently Steve’s done waiting. The first touch of his tongue feels rough and cold between her legs, where she’s getting softer and warmer by the second. She gasps and snaps her eyes shut, writhing between their two bodies. Steve doesn’t hold her still, but he does put his forearms over her thighs to weigh them down a bit. Her legs stay in place but she can still move her hips enough to direct him to where she wants him.

Bucky was right, she does love this. If the noises Steve is making are any indication, he really does, too, and apparently he knows how to drag it out. It goes on and on, just building tension until his mouth is warm from her body heat and her toes are starting to go numb. She’s just about ready to beg when he pulls away.

“Darcy, I want… can I bite you? Please?” His voice is husky and his throat is bobbing and she can see why Bucky was so looking forward to her messing him up.

“God, yeah. Yes. Right here,” she points, indicating a place on the top of her right thigh, near her hip crease. “Away from the femoral. That way you can let it bleed for a minute.”

Steve pulls his tee shirt off over his head and lays it out under them, presumably to protect the carpet, and then starts pulling at his belt buckle, too.

Bucky groans into Darcy’s neck. “Are you doing what I think you’re doing, punk?”

“This was your idea, Buck. You want a show or not?”

“She taste that good to you?”

“Just like she smells, only richer. Like molasses.” Steve wraps his fist around his cock and strokes slowly, eyes roving over Darcy, spread out in Bucky’s lap. “You two… God.”

Darcy smirks back at him. “Got something for me there, soldier?”

“Mmm, maybe some other time, gorgeous. I really want to get your blood in my mouth and I know this won’t be long once I do. Bucky, hold her still for me, I don’t want to get it wrong.” Steve settles himself between her legs again, laving his tongue over the spot she told him to bite. “I’m gonna make you come now.”

“ _Please._ ” She struggles against Bucky’s tightening grip, just to feel him hold her.

Now that the moment’s here, Darcy’s a little nervous. She’s never had this before; never been in a position where it was okay to openly express how the bite makes her feel. It’s such a relief to know she can moan wantonly, or sob, or thrash, or whatever she needs to do, that she doesn’t even feel pain when Steve’s fangs pierce her skin. The wave of euphoria radiates out from his mouth through her veins and she loses track of how she responds; she just lets it happen.

Just like last time, his teeth leave her skin quickly and she feels the blood well and spill over onto her skin. Someone’s hand is there, swiping through it and up over her hip onto her stomach. Then another, down to her knee and off her leg entirely. She can feel Steve’s arm brushing against the inside of her thigh while he touches himself and she has a moment of regret she’s too overwhelmed to keep her eyes open and watch that. When his tongue comes back to her vulva, cooled off slightly in the air conditioned room while they were talking, it’s shockingly hot and obscenely wet.

Darcy screams as her orgasm hits her with the force and subtlety of a freight train. Her legs want to twitch shut as the aftershocks roll through her and Steve licks her wound closed before he lets them. Bucky pulls her up and adjusts her until she’s sideways in his lap, head tucked in against his neck. When she finally catches her breath and blinks her eyes open, it’s to the sight of the two of them kissing, deep and seeking. Steve’s mouth and chin are covered in her blood and Bucky’s licking up every bit of her taste ( _tastes_ ) he can find from Steve’s skin. It’s easily the hottest thing she’s ever seen.

“I knew you two would be into swapping blood that way. That is so beautiful. Do you know how beautiful you are?”

“You like this, dollface? Steve feeding me your blood? You want him to kiss you?”

“He can kiss me if he wants, but I can’t ingest human blood. It’ll make me sick. I do, um, if you would want to… share other things with me. That way. I would like that.” The stutter she pushes through to get that out is embarrassing, but she’s proud she made it.

They stare unblinking back at her for a long moment. Something sparks in Bucky’s eyes and he grins at her, pulling Steve in close to whisper in his ear.

There’s that blush again, brighter than she’s ever seen it, probably because he just fed from her. “You want that?”

“Yeah. It’s… hard to describe why I like it. If it grosses you out we-”

Steve silences her by cupping her chin and pressing his thumb over her lips. “Shh. Kiss him,” he says, angling her toward Bucky again.

She does, trying her best to be pliant for Steve while he arranges them so he can get at Bucky’s belt and fly while Bucky still holds onto her. It would be awkward if either one of them couldn’t support her weight comfortably with one arm, but since they can she just trusts them and goes where they put her. She ends up braced by the metal arm, with his other one holding one of her legs up against his chest by a hand under her knee. Her other leg is on Steve’s shoulder where he’s hunched forward, giving her a perfect view down her own body of Steve taking Bucky into his mouth.

Tick another thing off the Bucket List for Darcy: she’s never seen this in person before. It’s almost a shame she doesn’t think she has another orgasm in her. Seems like a waste of an opportunity. Realistically, the whole thing is over too fast anyway. Steve looks like he’s showing off and seems incredibly pleased with himself when Bucky moans his name, along with a few other choice words, against Darcy’s lips and comes in his mouth. He sits up on his knees and pulls her in by that gentle grip on her chin, shoving his tongue in her slack mouth.

“Christ,” Bucky sighs. “If I wasn’t already dead, I would be now.”

Darcy follows his lead from earlier and guides Steve over to kiss him, too. The way they look at each other when their eyes catch makes her heart flutter in her chest. They really love each other, and they’re letting her in to witness it, to participate in it even. Their lips open and their tongues move together, and it’s just as sexy as she’d imagined it would be. When they break apart, they look over at her in unison, all drooping eyelids and ruddy complexions. She’s never going to be able to leave this couch.

“Stay the night with us,” Steve says, as if he read her mind. “We can finish the movie and put you in our bed when you’re tired. You don’t have to, obviously, but we want you to stay.”

“Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first scene was obviously inspired by Civil War. Y.T. needed to write it. Because she's an emotional masochist. Natasha calls Bucky 'brother', and he calls her 'little one'. And then we all cry.  
> Chapter title from Take Me to Church, by Hozier.


	11. The dark ain't deep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Sexodus, by MIA.

Bruce watches Tony blink himself awake. He’d slept only fitfully in the unfamiliar bed, but that didn’t stop him from staying over. For a while, he worried that his shallow sleep and constant fidgeting would keep Tony awake, but it seems nothing short of JARVIS’ voice or perhaps an actual nuclear explosion can get Tony up before he’s ready.

Tony’s sort of beautiful like this. He’s an objectively handsome man, even if you’re not a fan of facial hair; which Bruce isn’t, but what can you do? You can’t change an original and expect it to still work, and everything about Tony is original. At least, it is since Iron Man. Beauty is different, though. Tony, relaxed and warm in sleep, starting to stir so gradually Bruce could swear he’s watching Tony’s brain booting up, is the definition of beauty.

Jesus, you know it’s been a long time and you were gagging for it when these are the thoughts you have about someone you’ve only slept with once.

“You stayed,” Tony says, smile goofy in his half-asleep state. “I wasn’t sure you’d stay.”

Bruce shrugs, a little self-deprecating, and looks away.

“Hey, I didn’t mean it like- I just know you don’t sleep for more than a couple hours at a time. I figured, if I woke up alone, I’d bring you breakfast.”

“Tony, you really shouldn’t eat in the genetics lab,” he cringes. “There are blood products and my experiments are sensitive.”

Tony chuckles, low and happy. “I’m kidding. I would have dragged you back up here for breakfast in bed.”

“Is there even any food in this apartment?”

“Nope,” Tony says, popping the ‘p’ and waggling his eyebrows.

He doesn’t want to encourage the antics, but he really can’t stop himself from laughing. “Any other plans for the day, besides ‘breakfast’?” he asks, snuggling a little closer, in spite of himself.

“Nothing solid. I’ve got the robots fabricating some parts for me, so if they’re done I might work on a prototype I’ve been mapping out. Do you think it’s been a respectful amount of time since Barnes showed up for me to beg to get a look at the arm?”

Bruce rolls his eyes.

“What? I have a medical tech division, I can be interested in prosthetics! Honestly, I don’t know why it never occurred to me before. That thing is obviously a miracle of engineering genius; if I can mimic some of the mechanisms in a material that’s less expensive and… I’m gonna say _ostentatious_ than vibranium, we could help a lot of people. I don’t know how much research you’ve done into prosthetic technology, but considering what we have to work with, it’s kinda sad.”

“That’s a good idea, actually. You should tell him that, I think he’d want to help.”

“Besides, I think if I talk to him I can ferret out whether Darcy is fucking the anachronism twins.”

“Jesus, Tony.” Bruce rolls away from Tony and onto his back, throwing an arm over his own eyes. Tony had been carefully avoiding discussing Steve, Bucky, and Darcy in the week since he’d brought it up at their first dinner, and Bruce had thought he’d made his point that night but he should have guessed Tony would do whatever he wanted anyway and just didn’t want an argument.

“It’s a legitimate concern! Hormones make people do impulsive shit, Bruce. Things they wouldn’t normally do. You know what happened-”

“This was a bad idea. You’re not ready for this.” He rolls out of Tony’s bed, dragging the sheet with him to cover up while he looks for his clothes.

“What are you talking about? What does this have to do with potentially life-threatening sex?”

Bruce doesn’t dignify that with anything more than a glare.

Tony cringes. “Okay, but-”

“No. It’s not different just because you want it to be. How would you feel if someone were talking like this about you and me? Wringing their hands over it behind your back and trying to figure out how to stop it? If Natasha came to you tonight-”

Tony actually recoils a little and it would be funny if it weren’t so infuriating. “Natasha loves you.”

“The Other Guy threw her into a steel wall. We’re all lucky her neck wasn’t broken. We’re learning how to get along and function as a team; that doesn’t mean she trusts me, or isn’t afraid of me, and I don’t blame her. Only two things would upset me about that situation: that anyone would presume to know better than you, a mostly functional adult, what you should want or can handle, and if your defense of our relationship was anything other than ‘I acknowledge and accept that risk because _this is worth it to me_ ’.” He hadn’t meant to raise his voice. He takes a quiet moment to get a hold of himself while Tony gapes at him from the bed. “Think about how that makes you feel, and come talk to me when you’ve figured it out.”

Bruce storms out before he loses his nerve, and only allows himself mild disappointment that Tony doesn’t try to stop him.

  


...

 

 

Darcy agrees to meet him for coffee, and by that, they both know he means ‘bring coffee up to whatever lab Tony’s sequestered himself in’. He’s relieved when she shows up with her own mug and seems content to be drawn into conversation. After the usual small talk about Jane’s new equipment and the data it’s capable of producing, he’s worked up enough steam to get out what he actually wants to say.

“Darce, can I ask you-”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but yes, I am, and yes, we do,” she offers, with an artificially sweet smile. At his stunned look, she just shrugs and plows on. “Bruce gave me a heads up you might try to talk to me about it. Because he’s a better friend than you.”

Tony can’t manage more than an indignant squawk to that.

“Okay, better might be an exaggeration. How about ‘more mature’? ‘Emotionally available’?”

“Alright, I get it, I’m bad at this. You’ve both made your point.” He thinks that maybe if he’d had an illegitimate child, that person would be a lot like Darcy. Maybe that’s why he’s so concerned. It’s not that she might not be old enough to know better, or that she reminds him of the kid he’d been once. She’s family. Even Tony can see it. This Tower, this team; he was trying to build something like family. Maybe Barnes reminded him all over again that sometimes you just can’t pick your family.

“I’m not mad, Tony. I wish you’d be a little less suspicious, but I get it. You don’t want to leave your best minion to the voracious sexual appetites of two stunningly attractive super soldiers with giant, awe-inspiring-”

Tony holds up a hand, covering the spot where his arc reactor used to be with the other. “Stop! Stop right there, Jesus. Darcy, you’re not taking this seriously. You weren’t here for the incident with Barnes. That apartment looked like the last ten minutes of Saw V.”

“You’re not listening. I understand the risks, a lot better than you, and I’m ok with them.”

“This isn’t your run of the mill STI, Lewis. What if they don’t just kill you? What if you come back?”

“I knew I was going to end up a vampire when I was fifteen, Tony. This is me setting my own terms. I have that right, don’t I? Without coercion or interference?”

That almost hurts, because of course she does. Even if he were her father, she still would. He nods, looking down and hoping he doesn’t look as much like he knows he fucked up as he probably does.

“Oh, and Tony? Do me a favor and don’t talk to Steve or Bucky about this. They’re having a difficult enough time adjusting to the huge, mind-bending, boundary-pushing, Earth-shaking changes in their lives without worrying over your permission to grab onto a little happiness.”

“Darcy, I didn’t-”

“I know,” she says, gently, and he lets his eyes drift back to her smirking face. “But there are implications that go beyond soothing your conscience. Also: I know what you did last night, and before you ask: no, Bruce didn’t tell me, he just went straight to his lab to sulk in yesterday’s clothes like a Walk of Shame rookie. He may as well have had his underwear hanging out of his pocket, and that makes you, sir, a giant, red and gold hypocrite.”

“So I’ve been told. Thank you,” he snaps, and immediately regrets it. Darcy doesn’t flinch, though, just grins as if gratitude, sarcastic or not, is exactly what she deserves.

“Good. Now that that’s settled, I’ve already ordered a nice, big lunch from this new organic cafe Natasha likes. It’s family style, though, so you’ll have to come down and face the music if you wanna eat!”

She actually blows him a kiss on her way out the door.

Fuck his life.

 

 

...

 

 

The more human things leftover in Steve’s apartment after the change had been slowly thrown away as they expired or became extraneous. For example, the boy’s ensuite bathroom has been immaculate and essentially bare the entire time she’s known them. She’d only used it a few times before she started staying over last week, but it had looked like someone cleaned it once and then, after it wasn’t needed, forgot about it altogether. Which is why it’s surprising to walk in there, debating the merits of their shower and sleeping naked versus a trip down to her own apartment, and find a little, flowered cup, with a brand new blue plastic toothbrush sitting in it. She squints at it for a moment, as if that will make it make sense. Then she opens the medicine cabinet and finds her favored toothpaste and mouthwash as well. They don’t need these things, they never will again. There’s only one explanation: one or both of them got her a toothbrush.

Darcy walks down the hall, toothbrush in hand, to find Steve cleaning dishes and Bucky playing ‘Stairway to Heaven’ on his guitar. “I have a toothbrush here?”

“You need one,” Bucky shrugs.

“Is that… strange?” Steve asks, looking to Bucky for clarification. Bucky just shrugs again.

“It means we are serious. As in, my things are in your apartment so it’s kind of my apartment, too.”

“Problem?” Bucky gives her that devil-may-care grin that utterly delights her.

“No, not even a little bit. I just, well, this calls for a celebration,” she deflects. Her lingering ‘Darcy Lewis doesn’t do commitment’ policy has a very large problem with it. She’ll work through it.

Steve pads out of the kitchen, sweatpants riding a little too low on his hips to be decent. Both she and Bucky track him like the depraved sex maniacs they are.

“Let’s have sex. Together. At the same time.” Darcy regrets that request the moment it leaves her mouth. For the first time in weeks, the boys look both concerned and uncomfortable.

“Absolutely not.” To her eternal surprise, Bucky says it first. “Least not...the way umm I-” Holy shit, she made Bucky Barnes stutter from across the room. “We ain’t small boys, Darce-”

“Woah! Slow down, cowboy. I didn’t mean... that.”

“Be explicit,” Steve says, coming to settle down next to Bucky, his expression too much like the way he looked in the gods forsaken vampire club.

“I don’t mean you two, _and me_ , at once. More like umm… tag team?  And then, hurdles?”

Bucky doubles over his acoustic guitar, laughing. “Keep going kitten. Does curling play into these elaborate metaphors?”

“Okay. Fine. Different tack.” Darcy marches over to where her two soldiers are lounging on the couch. She climbs into Steve’s lap and runs her fingers across his scalp none too gently. “I want to fuck you both, separately, and then I want Bucky to help me scramble your brains. You game, Steve?”

“Yes, ma'am.” Darcy’s never seen a vampire submit to anyone, especially so readily, but Steve Rogers has a habit of completely wrecking her expectations. It’s intoxicating, the way he melts into her, seeking her warmth and her neck. She rewards him by laying a bit more pressure into his scalp.

Steve loves it when she runs her hands through his hair. Without quite meaning to, she’d let her nails grow out a bit more than might be practical for someone who types all day. It’s totally worth the embarrassing typos when Steve Rogers fucking _purrs_ for her, pressing up into her fingers and mouthing at her neck.

“Are you up for-” Steve whispers into her skin, not quite finishing the question. She can feel his intent, fangs sharp like a promise against her skin.

“Always,” she breathes as Bucky’s guitar makes a soft settling sound.

The boys move in unison. Steve standing with Darcy hanging from his arms like a doll, her legs wrapped securely around his waist. He’s still worrying the flesh of her neck. It’s one of Steve’s peculiar quirks.

They’ve done just about every combination of oral and manual sex in the past week but no one’s taken it further than that. Darcy suspects both boys don’t quite trust themselves with her yet.

Steve lays her on the bed and sinks down next to her, running his mouth over her collar bone, a thin red welt in the wake of his teeth.

“Why do you think Stevie chews on me all the time?” Darcy muses, encouraging the affection by running her fingers through his hair again.

The bed dips behind her as Bucky settles in, kissing down her shoulders and whispering cooly in her ear. “He likes that you trust him to do it at all.”

Darcy arches beneath him, baring the spot on her neck where the boys never bite, her jugular on display as Steve pauses, and then runs his blunt teeth over the spot. “Is that right, Steve?”

He mumbles softly against her skin. One wrong move, if either of them flinched… Steve likes to please almost as much as being pleased, but it’s the absolute trust she shows him that catches him in the groin.

Bucky is a little different. While Steve worships and worries her skin, he’s more likely to devour it. He’s pulling off her skinny jeans and panties, leaving hot, rough kisses across her hips. A swarm of hands tug at her shirt and bra until she’s bare and splayed out between them.

“You smell a little different. Like-” Bucky’s whispering into the crook where her thigh meets her hip, metal arm resting on her stomach. He dips his tongue into her folds and she shudders. Steve gives her a shallow bite on the shoulder, propping her head up under his forearm so they can both watch the blood run in tracks down her chest.

“Caramel,” Steve groans, lapping at a little red pool slick on her skin. At first, they were hesitant about dripping or smearing blood all over her. They seemed to like the way it feels just as much as she did, but a few nights into the week Bucky quietly confessed that he was worried actually seeing the gore would scare her. They spent the better part of that night playing with Bucky’s new straight razor to prove that wasn’t going to be the case.

The fingers of Bucky’s flesh hand join his tongue, flicking at her clit. Darcy whines low in her throat, breath catching. “Fuck. A week’s worth of foreplay is enough. Get to it, Sarg.”

He takes one more long, deep swipe with his tongue and dips into her. They’ve barely started and her hands are fisted in both Steve and Bucky’s hair, each man dutifully taking half of her body as his solemn duty.

Bucky comes up for air, having apparently he shucked his own clothing somewhere along the way because his thighs are naked where they rub against the inside of hers. He kisses Steve, both of them angled to deliver the perfect view to Darcy splayed out beneath them.

“Mmm, she tastes like syrup.” Steve sighs and licks the rest of her off of Bucky’s mouth. “Doll, you getting close to your time?”

Darcy’s a little distracted, no one could blame her for missing the reference. “Time for what? Is it sex? Because I think it’s time for some sex.”

Bucky releases Steve’s mouth, running his tongue over his bottom lip and staring down at Darcy like he wants every drop of blood in her body. She’s frankly surprised that he hasn’t lapped up the flowing blood that’s smeared over her breasts and stomach by this point. Steve draws up close to them, rubbing his erection against Darcy’s hip and sealing the little wound on her shoulder closed. He was always careful to make these little love bites shallow and he never left them open long.

“Your rag, kitten. I’ve been wonderin’ what you’re gonna taste like.” He cants his hips forward, the large, blunt tip of his cock slipping between her folds to punctuate the word ‘taste’.

“That’s- I’ve never… Oh, fuck, Bucky.” She wants that; both vampires licking her clean. It had always seemed like too much to fantasize over, to even think about, but now that he mentions it…  Her hips snap up against his, impatient, as his cock misses the mark and bumps her clit instead.  
“Please. Please, Bucky, baby. Steve, make him move.”

Steve slips his hand down between her legs and spreads her open for Bucky, and that’s when the cocky grin finally falls off. He’s gracelessly sliding into her before she can start begging again.

“Oh, darlin’- think I like it when you beg.” He groans, low, almost like he’s pained. Darcy grips his arms, strokes the metal prosthetic like it’s skin. It doesn’t bother her; it never did. It’s a part of Bucky.

“Come on, come on. Faster baby.” More whining and squirming and bucking. It’s really all she’s got the brain power for.

“Jesus kitten, you’re going to kill me all over again.” He’s a talker; so’s she. Poor Steve suffers in silence.

“We don’t wanna hurt you,” Steve whispers as Bucky lets out another long haggard breath. He’s buried to the hilt, body curled around her, finally licking at the cooling blood on her skin.

“Feels like you’re made for us,” he murmurs to her, rolling his hips and sinking down deeper than she thought possible.

He seems satisfied that she’s not going to break on him and starts to make slow, even strokes. There’s so much power behind those hips, she can sense it, and she knows he’s holding out on her. When Steve adds the firm pressure of his index finger to her clit, Darcy gives back to Bucky just as good as she’s getting. What started slow and careful quickly devolves to the two of them writhing inelegantly together. Darcy digs into Bucky with her fingernails while he pushes her right knee up further against his side to get her at a deeper angle.

That angle? It’s perfect. “God, Bucky, right there. You’re gonna make me come,” she pants.

“I can go for hours, doll…” He’s probably exaggerating. Then again, she’s seen them working over punching bags. And each other.

“No, be a good boy and leave something for- ah! For Steve…” Speaking of that little shit, his pace has quickened on her clit and Darcy comes before she can finish her sentence. Her vision whites out, which is a shame because Bucky’s O-face must be adorable. He lets go shortly after she does and pauses to grind down with some of that force she was missing earlier, emptying into her completely. They know she likes it when they leave her a mess.

He pulls away, and out, and she can feel herself dripping. Darcy sits up, muscles screaming but she can’t be bothered to care. Both men watch her dip her fingers into her pussy and smear what Bucky left her up across her stomach. Those two fingers swipe across Steve’s lips next and he parts them obediently to suck her fingers in to the second knuckle. The vibration of his perfect moan makes her feel like she can go another round.  
He pulls off, a wet little popping sound following his lips. “How do you want me, Darce?”

Her toes curl with the thousands of implications, but she settles on one. “Sit up, against the headboard.”

She notices his cock bobbing as he moves into position. Poor Steve’s been neglected, but he seems to enjoy watching she and Bucky together, delaying his own release until it must be painful.

Bucky is helpful and picks her up easily, arranging her in Steve’s lap. Super strength is handy in the bedroom.

The cool, solid plane of Bucky’s chest is against her back and she leans into it. He must notice the way her legs shake as she tries to position herself. Steve is a quick study and steadies most of her weight through her hips with his powerful grip. Two arms wrap around her waist, giving her a little more support. It’s perfect: Bucky’s flesh and metal arms steadying her while Steve cradles her body in his lap. It doesn’t feel like they’re crowding her, even though she’d thoroughly boxed in. It’s just perfect. Like they really were made for one another.

“Are you sure?” Leave it to Steve to ask a woman naked in his lap if she’s sure about having sex with him. His mother raised him right.

“Yes. Less talking, more fucking.” She isn’t going to let Steve tease her. This time, Darcy takes control of their coupling. Her hips tilt up and she takes him all at once, using her body weight to sink down on him. She can’t help the groan that comes from her throat at the stretch. “You two are… oh, my god. You’re both perfect; he’s long, you’re so fucking thick.”

Steve’s ears turn pink, pupils blown black. He looks half way to fucked out already. It takes her a few moments of breathing through her nose and leaning against Bucky to adjust to him.

“I know how you feel, doll.” Bucky laughs darkly in her ear, biting down on her neck just long enough to get a taste of her.

Darcy can already feel him hard again, pressing into the small of her back. Steve’s head is tilted down, an almost blank stare focusing on where they meet. “Ready?” she asks, gently. He nods and lifts his hips, making his thrust deeper before they even get going.

It’s not like it is in porn. Not quite. She is sort of bouncing on top of him, but he pulls back and meets each movement. Grip moving from her thighs to her ass as Bucky holds her just so. It’s a good thing neither of them are touching her clit because too sensitized at this point. Steve is practically battering at her g-spot, and she doesn’t usually come that way but she can feel the bone-deep pleasure pooling in her thighs and gut.

Steve comes before she does. He looks a little mortified, even as she follows him close after, reveling in the hot rush of his orgasm. He’s not even finished spilling into her body before he sputters out a quick apology. “I’m sorry, you’re so good, so perfect…”

Darcy just smiles and leans down to shut him up. She swipes her tongue across his fangs and gives him a few drops. Steve sucks on her tongue, humming as he thrusts up gently, not soft but momentarily spent.

“Ok…” Darcy slumps against Steve’s chest when her arms won’t hold her anymore. The boys are making out noisily above her head and the sex she wanted to have tonight seemed more do-able in her head. “I need to hydrate and sleep for fourteen hours. Holy fuck. That was amazing. Bucky, I hate to bother you, but I can’t move my legs.”

He laughs and pulls her up, off of Steve. Her desire flickers to life for a moment when she sees just how much come oozes out of her and onto Steve’s quivering stomach. Between those two, it’s not a small amount.

“Ugh. The spirit is willing, but the body needs a snack.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NO ONE PANIC. THERE WILL BE MORE VAMPIRE OT3.  
> As you can see we’ve created a series link, with this story as it’s start, and we plan on continuing it. A one-shot set shortly after this story is already in progress, two others are planned, and a sequel is being outlined. We’re not going anywhere.  
> Additionally, we both write other pairings and fic in multiple fandoms, so we’ll be publishing other things you may like as well. If you want to keep up with any of that you can subscribe here or follow us on Tumblr ( [YoursTruly](http://www.call-me-yt.tumblr.com) , [Erato](http://www.eratosyne.tumblr.com) ) where we will post updates and also fangirl over various media, objectify celebrities (that’s mostly Y.T.), and generally act like children. Y.T. is also on Twitter (@yourstrulyfic), but there she mostly talks about Sherlock and her cats. So, use your best judgment on that.  
> If you or someone you know draws fan art, we are looking for someone to do a commission for us. Mostly because we really want to see these boys in fangs. 
> 
> Thank you all so much, again, for the comments, kudos, and general love. The support for this ‘verse has been surprising and overwhelming and we have fallen a little bit in love with every one of you. You guys really motivated and delighted us and we’re eternally grateful.


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